Nairobi Park is an unusual spot. Only seven kilometers from the very centre of Nairobi, it has 117 square km of protected game park that has many species of animals including giraffes, buffalo, lions, black rhinos, crocodiles, several species of antelopes and birds. It is fenced along the city side but is open at the south-west end to allow free migration in and out from the Serengeti system. As the population of Nairobi and surrounding area grows, humans are increasingly encroaching on this ecosystem and soon it will likely be cut off entirely from the larger game areas of the Serengeti, Amboseli and Massai Mara.

Although it feels a bit like a zoo, it is a natural open environment for local wild animals – no cages and the carnivores hunt down their food. It is a large area and, depending on how long you have to drive in the park or how long the grass is, you can see many animals or just a few. We arrived in Nairobi on Sunday evening and by 4 pm on Monday had seen gazelles, giraffes, hartebeest, topi and even one female lion who was resting up not far from a herd of antelope – likely waiting for dusk to make a hunt. When she lay down in the long grass she melted away and was impossible to see. Great camouflage.

A group of giraffes munched on the leaves of trees in one area against a backdrop of the city.

The park also has an area containing the ashes from the historic burning in of elephant tusks ivory worth sixty million Kenyan Shillings 1989 – a demonstration of the government’s commitment to putting a moratorium on ivory sales. For some time the poaching of elephants for their tusks diminished however, even as recent as last week, there has been more news about elephant poaching in one of the other Kenyan parks. (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-20944859)
There are no elephants in Nairobi Park.