Koikai and others said rivers and ponds in the Maasai Mara reserve — a huge destination for safari-going visitors to Kenya that is known worldwide for the spectacular migration of wildebeests — were filling up with rotting hippo carcasses as the drought worsens.
"They are floating in rivers," Koikai told AFP. "They died as a result of fighting among themselves and starvation."
The Mara River in the western part of the reserve — a favorite with wildlife photographers and filmmakers during the migration and the home of several luxury safari camps — has been hit especially hard, according to guides who work in the area.
"The water level is so low now that it's having a severe effect on the hippo population," said a naturalist at one high-end facility. "As pods meet up, they are fighting and young males have been killing each other. There is also some infanticide going on with older males killing young ones.
"There are a lot of bodies floating by with serious lacerations, which tells me they are fighting," he told AFP.
Joseph Kiprono, a warden with the Kenya Wildlife Service Problem Animal Management unit, spoke of "dozens of hippos currently dying in rivers" and warned that increasingly desperate wildlife posed a danger to humans in the area.
