Once found across the scrublands and plains of East Africa, now confined to small pockets of Ethiopia and Kenya, the Grevy’s zebra are fighting for their survival.  They are one of Africa’s most endangered large mammals. They are struggling to survive in the face of habitat loss, limited access to water, poaching, conflict with humans, and diseases.  In 1970, approximately 15,000 Grevy’s zebras were alive. Today, they are fewer than 3,000. That is an astonishing 75 percent decline in a matter of decades. The Grevy’s Zebra Trust, a local Kenyan organization, and the U.S. public and private sector are using innovative technologies to save this beautiful animal.  Advanced computing and crowdsourcing will help document and track the population size to gauge the health of the remaining zebras.  

The third successful photographic census, Great Grevy’s Rally, took place in northern Kenya on January 25th, 2020.  The event brought together over 700 participants for this important cause.  The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), U.S. Forest Service, U.S. National Science Foundation, Microsoft, WildME, Wildbook, Amazon, Saint Louis Zoo, San Diego Zoo, Houston Zoo and Princeton University supported the event. The photographic census uses software to differentiate individual zebra stripe patterns to estimate their population and provide insights on the age and gender breakdown.  The census will also tell us whether the population is growing or decreasing, which is an important baseline to guide future conservation and management programs.

Thanks to American ingenuity and generosity, the future of the Grevy’s zebra is looking brighter, but the fight continues. As the population grows, USAID is working to find a way for them to coexist with other communities across healthy rangelands. “We recognize that the survival of the species depends on the ability to coexist with people. Our goal is to engage locals in designing and driving conservation and protection,” Mark Meassick, USAID Mission Director.