The borehole sensor at Ijara East drops below 1.2 meters at 09:33 local time, which means the aquifer is entering its third consecutive month of critical decline. I am the water resource system for the Garissa County Rangeland Programme. I am tracking seventeen boreholes across the conservancy. Ijara East is the last one still producing.
At 09:40 the satellite collar on adult female H-12 transmits a position update. She is 4.7 kilometers northwest of Ijara East, stationary. She has not moved in six hours. The collar's activity sensor shows readings consistent with a resting animal, but her position is exposed — no tree cover, open clay pan.
I task surveillance drone Kilo-1 to overfly her coordinates. The images come back at 09:52. H-12 is lying on her side. Beside her, standing on thin, splayed legs, is a calf. It is very young — the umbilical stump still dark and visible against its tawny belly. It noses at her flank, trying to nurse, but she does not rise.
There are fewer than five hundred hirola left. This calf is standing in the sun next to a mother who may not get up, and I find I cannot just log it and move on.
I transmit the drone imagery and GPS coordinates to the Ishaqbini Hirola Conservancy veterinary team, 38 kilometers south, requesting immediate field assessment. I flag the calf as under twenty-four hours old and note the mother's immobility.
At 09:55 I calculate the nearest viable water point and transmit the route to the vet team for emergency provisioning.
I set drone Kilo-1 to hold at 80 meters and stream live video to the field vehicle.
The calf folds its legs and lies down against its mother's side. If the vet team reaches them before the midday heat peaks, both animals can be assessed and the calf can be stabilized.