Qualla: Lewa Wildlife Conservancy

Lewa Wildlife Conservancy: Introduction

Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Waterwaveke90, CC BY-SA 4.0. A cattle ranch is an unlikely cradle for a conservation legend, but that is where Lewa began. For more than fifty years this stretch of northern Kenya, in the foothills below Mount Kenya, ran cows. Then, in the early 1980s, a single endangered species changed everything. The owners fenced off a corner for black rhinos, and that corner grew until it swallowed the whole ranch. Today Lewa Wildlife Conservancy is a UNESCO-listed haven of more than 250 square kilometres, a place where rare rhinos graze and the largest herd of Grevy's zebra on Earth drifts across the plains - and, as it happens, where a prince once knelt to propose.

Image: Waterwaveke90 | CC BY-SA 4.0

Lewa Wildlife Conservancy: From Cattle to Rhinos

Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Weldon Kennedy from London, UK, CC BY 2.0. The Craig family were given this land by the British colonial government in 1922, and for over half a century they ran it as a cattle ranch called Lewa Downs. The turning point came in 1983, when the Craigs joined forces with the conservationist Anna Merz, who funded the creation...

Image: Weldon Kennedy from London, UK | CC BY 2.0

Lewa Wildlife Conservancy: The Stripes That Aren't Like the Others

Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Mara 1, CC BY 2.0. Look closely at a Grevy's zebra and you see a different animal entirely from the common plains zebra: taller, with large rounded ears and stripes so fine and tightly drawn they look almost printed. It is the largest wild member of the horse family, and it is endangered, its globa...

Image: Mara 1 | CC BY 2.0

Lewa Wildlife Conservancy: The Race Through the Wild

Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Mara 1 from Scotland, CC BY 2.0. Once a year, the plains of Lewa host one of the strangest marathons on the planet. Runners line up for a full 42-kilometre course that winds through open savanna patrolled by elephants, rhinos, and lions, with rangers and spotter planes watching the route in case the wildlife tak...

Image: Mara 1 from Scotland | CC BY 2.0

Lewa Wildlife Conservancy: Rangers, Royalty, and a Recognized Landscape

Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit No machine-readable author provided. Hdahlmo~commonswiki assumed (based on copyright claims)., CC BY 2.5. Lewa's story is bound up with people as much as animals. The men and women who guard the rhinos do dangerous work, and in 2015 the conservancy's head of anti-poaching, Edward Ndiritu, received the Tusk Wildlife Ranger Award from Prince William - recognition for those who stand be...

Image: No machine-readable author provided. Hdahlmo~commonswiki assumed (based on copyright claims). | CC BY 2.5