On October 1st, 2021, a friend of mine (Stratton Hatfield) and I commenced a mammal big day across the Mara-Loita-Nguruman landscape of Southern Kenya, covering roughly 100 Nautical Miles (1 'minute' of latitute). Our primary purpose was to showcase the immense diversity this region has to offer and to try to shed light on some of the conservation challenges this area faces. What we didn't necessarily anticipate would be our ability to match and beat the Mammal Big Day world record set in February 2019 in the greater Tarangire Ecosystem of Tanzania. This we did, by 2 species - but although we were utterly thrilled to have done so, we're confident that with some better planning in the future, we can do much better.
I'd like to stress that we were not trying to beat the world record. I hope the way I've written the report is evidence of our goal - to shed light on this precious extended ecosystem and the challenges it currently faces.