The Founder
Born and raised in Garissa, Kenya—the heart of hirola country—Dr. Abdullahi Ali is an award-winning indigenous conservationist dedicated to protecting his homeland’s wildlife.
Dr. Abdullahi H. Ali
In 2014, Dr. Ali founded the Hirola Conservation Programme (a nonprofit organization solely dedicated to saving the critically endangered hirola antelope in eastern Kenya). Dr. Ali works with local Somalis to save the world’s most endangered antelope while improving the local’s livelihood.
He works in the isolated and volatile regions of eastern Kenya and some parts of southwest Somalia that border Kenya. Despite been raised in a small village in eastern Kenya, a place known for insecurity, poverty and low literacy, Dr. Ali received his Ph.D. in Ecology from the University of Wyoming where he also won the Outstanding Dissertation of the year award- 2016.
Childhood & Early life
Dr. Ali grew up at the northern tip of the hirola historical range in Garissa, eastern Kenya. Both of his parents are nomadic pastoralists, who keep mixed herds including camels, cattle, goats and sheep.
As a child, his role was to assist his parents not just in herding, but also help protect the livestock from carnivores particularly caracals and hyenas. Based on Somali cultural perspectives, the more attacks you stop, the more animals you inherit from your father. He was determined not to incur any potential losses.
Subsequently, he stopped several of these human-carnivore conflicts thus assisting his father in sustaining the livelihood of their family.
To fill in these knowledge gaps, we employ various data gathering techniques such as GPS telemetry, long-term satellite imagery analysis, sight-re-sight data, large predator-proof enclosure (s) and multiyear-multi-sites experiments to provide practical data sets that will inform future management and re-introduction into the historical range.
Education
At the tender age of seven, Dr. Ali was forcefully captured from the outskirts of Garissa by the local chief to attend compulsory primary education. He was, therefore, a pioneer student at the Sankuri primary school, located 20 km north-west of Garissa.
He went to Thika high school, where he got his first opportunity to visit the Masai Mara Nature Reserve. This was a turning point and marked the beginning of his conservation career. He later earned his bachelor’s degree in Wildlife Biology in 2005 and a master’s degree in Conservation Biology from the University of Nairobi in 2010. Dr. Ali received his Ph.D. in Ecology from the University of Wyoming in 2016.
Why Hirola
Dr. Ali saw how that the plight of the hirola had been mis-conceptualized and he was convinced the conservation efforts and actions ultimately needed a “very strong home-grown solution”. This led to the formation of the Hirola Conservation Programme in 2014.
In recent years, Dr. Ali has established himself as the world-leading expert on hirola antelope ecology which is arguably the world’s most endangered antelope.