Man’s best friend is more than a loyal companion: their noses are scientific wonders. A dog’s sense of smell is anywhere from 10,000 to 100,000 times as acute as our own. While humans have about six million olfactory receptors in their noses, dogs have up to 300 million. In short, their keen noses are an invaluable asset on a ranger team.

Big Life’s Tracker Dog Unit currently has three canine rangers: Didi, Bonnie, and Clyde. Together, they make a disproportionately large contribution to our anti-poaching and conservation goals.

The direct impact is obvious: in instances when a poacher has killed an elephant or other wild animals, the Dog Unit is able to respond to track and apprehend criminals, achieving results no human or machine is capable of.

As a result, their presence alone is a huge deterrent to wildlife crime in the ecosystem. We know from our intelligence network that the dogs factor into poachers’ decision-making process, and that they have increased the threat of arrest to the point where for many, that risk is simply too high.

Their indirect impact is subtler and comes in the form of support to the local community.  This kind of assistance is unpredictable and varied, ranging anywhere from helping to apprehend criminals, to finding lost children in the bush and reuniting them with their families.

So far in 2018, the Dog Unit has helped Big Life ranger teams respond to incidents involving: vandalism, human search and rescue, assault, theft, and wildlife injury.

Please show your support for our canine rangers by making a donation today. Should you choose to make your gift monthly, you’ll join our Ranger Club, and will be entered to win a Big Life Leatherman multitool.

To you, he’s a face. Moriati Tisiki: 27 years old, member of the Big Life Mobile 4 ranger unit, and cover image of the 2017 Big Life annual report.

But there is more to his story.

Moriati is a high-school graduate. He completed his secondary school education, but could not afford to go on to university. He applied for a ranger job that would allow him to stay at home rather than have to move to a distant urban area, and his education and positive attitude made him an easy pick.

Moriati is a husband. In traditional Maasai culture, a man must pay a certain number of cows to the family of his prospective wife. In some cases, no cows means no wedding. After joining Big Life in 2015, Moriati started saving his ranger salary, eventually buying enough cows to get married.

Moriati will soon be a father, expecting his first child this year. His child will grow up in a very different world from the one that he did.

And Moriati is a protector. His unit operates on Rombo Group Ranch (a poaching hotspot in the southernmost reaches of Big Life’s area of operation), and Moriati is responsible for the collection of all monitoring data. This information is used to assess the always-changing threats to wildlife, as well as the efficacy of Big Life’s work, allowing us to adapt our approaches if necessary.

Earlier this year, Big Life supported Moriati’s participation in one of the inaugural ranger trainings at the Amboseli Conservation Academy, and he came out top of his class for the academic component of the training. His colleagues speak of a soft-spoken, hardworking young man who is passionate about what he does.

Moriati is a Big Life ranger. Every face has a story, and their stories are the foundation of Big Life.

You can support these committed men and women by becoming a recurring donor through the Ranger Club program at biglife.org/monthly-giving. Any new supporters who join in the month of July will be entered to win a custom Leatherman multitool, engraved with the Big Life logo.

Photo: Moriati Tisike, on the left, upon completing training at the Amboseli Conservation Academy

Just like humans, ecosystems need occasional check-ups. They are constantly changing and we need some way to gauge their overall health, and assess whether current conservation strategies are working or not.

It’s easy for us to get a feel for trends from the ground, but to really take the pulse of an ecosystem, you’ve got to be in the air.  From above, it’s easier to get total counts of large mammals. It can’t be done slowly, it’s got to be done fast and over a large area to minimize double-counting.

It’s a logistical challenge, but thankfully one that the Kenya Wildlife Service takes on every few years, with support from partners. This year it involved four aircraft spending whole days in the air, counting everything larger than a goat. The exercise is repeated in both wet and dry seasons, making sure that the seasonal movements of people and wildlife are properly captured.

This last week Big Life was glad to be able to support this exercise with one of our aircraft, seen in this image alongside the KWS planes prior to the start of the day’s count, and a clear shot of Kilimanjaro meant clear skies for counting wildlife below.

The last count took place in 2014, so the exercise is timely and helpful as we continue to assess, and adjust, our programs as necessary to have the maximum impact. A big thanks to all other partners involved in making this happen.

There are fewer giraffes than there are elephants alive in the world.

It’s a bit of a surprise, given how little media attention they receive. Estimates put the current population at less than 100,000* following a drop of approximately 40% in the past three decades.

We know: it’s more bad news and it gets tiring. So, given that it’s the longest day in the year (in the northern hemisphere anyway) the Giraffe Conservation Foundation has initiated World Giraffe Day, an opportunity to appreciate these tallest terrestrial animals.

Despite their gentle nature, giraffes don’t have it easy. They are a favorite target for poachers, yielding a lot of high-value meat for the effort involved. They are also very susceptible to human activity, and can get entangled in fences or hit by cars.

Big Life rangers do everything they can to keep giraffes safe from these various threats in the Amboseli ecosystem, by catching bushmeat poachers and working with farmers to keep them away from fences. We’re confident that the local giraffe population is growing, and hope to receive confirmation of this from the aerial wildlife census that has just started.

So while our teams work to keep giraffes safe in Amboseli, we ask that you take a moment, perhaps a long one, to spare a thought for these wonderful animals and the efforts to secure their future across Africa.

*Number by Giraffe Conservation Foundation and IUCN