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"Visitors can also have an opportunity to see hippos from close range as they come out of water at around 4.00pm in the evening. It's an amazing spectacle."
The park has also established a new snake park, which was rated earlier this year as the best in the country by the Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS).
The park has a collection of snakes that includes deadly pythons, puff adders, cobras and the black mamba. "Recently we also staged a coup in the industry when we managed to bring from Malindi a mongoose and a pig warthog that are in a strange relationship. The two were found staying together and since then, they have not left each other. They move together and eat together all the time. It's a sight to behold," said Kipkoech.
Set next to the Bamburi Cement Factory, the park boasts an enormous variety of animals, reptiles, insects and botanical gardens, as well as a Haller Park Trail, which is the ideal way to see the various animals. Holding or feeding a reptile, such as a snake, is also allowed under the close supervision of a guide.
The park shows educational videos, with an emphasis on the history and continuous improvement of the trail. The park started as the quarry for a cement factory in 1954. The factory sourced its raw materials from the quarry, which held a fossil coral limestone reef that lived under the sea up to a quarter of a million years ago.
The limestone mining left the park as a barren piece of land stripped of its natural resources, but it was then redeveloped through reforestation and conservation efforts and is now the natural habitat for a large number of plants and animals. The driving force behind creating the park was Rene Haller, who in 1971 started the quarry rehabilitation drive with the backing of Bamburi Portland Cement Company. They rehabilitated the southern 75 hectares of the Quarry and the northern section, which was 11 square km, creating, in the end, a huge natural park.
The park is now home to a variety of game animals and birds that each has a function in the park's ecosystem, including hippos, giraffes, buffalos, zebras, waterbucks, elands and oryx. The bushbuck, suni and duiker are not easily seen, as they tend to scamper away on hearing any sounds. The animals most active at night are the bush pig, marsh mongoose and serval cats.
Some of the famous animals at the wildlife sanctuary include the hippos Sally and Potty. Sally was reared as an orphan by wildlife filmmakers and Joan Root in Naivasha. In 1976, when she was 4 years old, she was brought to Haller Park.
She is now around 20 years old and weighs approximately 1 - 1.5 tons. Potty was confiscated from a German zoo because he was not kept properly and transferred to the Nature Trail in November 1986. He weighs between 1.5 and 2 tons.
Cape buffalos, waterbucks, elands, oryx, crocodiles, monkeys and tortoises are some of the other animals at the sanctuary. There are also more than 160 bird species recorded to date. Some species that were introduced to the area include crested crane, marabou stork, yellow billed stork, pelican, and Egyptian geese.
The bird species that are frequently seen in the Game Sanctuary include gray heron, black heron, great white egret, little egret yellow-billed egret, sacred ibis plovers, white-faced tree ducks (seasonal), African fish eagle and pied kingfisher and malachite kingfisher.
Vegetation is also plenty in the sanctuary: Casuarinas, Conocarpus, Algaroba, Neem, Fig and indigenous species Mvule, Mbambakofi, and Mgurure are some of the plantlife one can see at the park.
The sanctuary charges Sh400 and Sh150 for Kenyan adults and children, while internationals are charged Sh800 and Sh400. Schools and colleges that make advance arrangement are charged Sh200 for teachers, Sh50 for kindergarten kids, Sh100 for primary pupils, and Sh150 for secondary and college students. Contact Terer Kipkoech 0724448596 or This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
By James Momanyi
