The whistling thorn is Acacia drepanalobium, which has a special relationship with a species of Crematogaster ant. The ants live in the trees, fiercely protecting them from browsers that would strip their leaves, flowers & seeds. In exchange, the tree provides the ants with hollow galls in which to live and special nectar glands for food.This relationship is the analogy for community conservation: people protecing the landscape and wildlife, and in exchange the land and animals provide the people with food, shelter, water, and economic benefit.

Wildlife & Plants

Whistling Thorn Camp is located in one of East Africa's most diverse landscapes, with extremely high plant and bird diversity, and some of the largest elephant herds remaining today. Regarding birds of the region, there are over 450 species, with numerous threatened species. The globally threatened Lesser Kestrel is found here in considerable numbers, and Fisher's Lovebird, an endemic, is very common.

Check back here as we develop species lists from Whistling Thorn Camp.

For web resources, there is excellent information on the birds at www.birdlife.org.

For elephants, be sure to go to the Wildlife Conservation Socity's Tarangire Elephant Project website at http://www.wcs.org/tarangire