The Way Things Are

Linda Lou Burton posting from Lake Nakuru National Park, Nakuru, Kenya –Climate change. Believe it or not, that’s what scientists are saying about the floods in Lake Nakuru of late. Too much rain coming down is making a mess of “the way things were.” Neighborhoods in the Lake Nakuru area have been flooded out; people relocated. Animals in the already small 11,120-acre Lake Nakuru National Park are losing space too. The rhinos and zebras and antelope and buffalo that live here have less grazing area. As for the birds – flamingoes in particular – all that fresh water coming from the sky is messing up the alkalinity of the lake water where algae grows. Since algae is what flamingoes eat, they are flying elsewhere. Nevertheless, we saw flamingoes and other birds and animals as we were leaving this morning; a baboon gave us his opinion on the state of things. As for the Undertaker Bird — well, they always look glum.

Flooding Displaces Hundreds Around Rift Valley Lakes. Reported by Kenya News Agency 8/20/2022. Increased rainfall in Kenya’s Rift Valley Lakes’ catchment zones is the main cause of the rising water levels in the water bodies according to new research findings. A study conducted jointly by the Technical University of Kenya (TUK) and University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences (HyWa-BOKU) in Vienna, Austria indicates that mean annual rainfall for 2010−2020 period increased by up to 30 per cent in the Rift Valley region due to the effects of climate change on rainfall patterns. https://www.kenyanews.go.ke/flooding-displaces-hundreds-around-rift-valley-lakes/