International Cable News Network (CNN), has drawn the ire Kenyans in its reporting again after one of the reporters of the news medium arrogated to herself the discovery of whales in the east African nation.
The news channel in its CNN Travel segment it claims one of its reporters found whales in Kenya.
According to nairobinews.nation.co.ke, in their latest article about Market Place Africa titled “The Woman who found whales in Kenya”, they claim that a former lawyer in London, Jane Spilsbury moved to Kenya with her marine biologist husband, Steve when she heard tales from locals about whales and dolphins.
According to CNN, a curious Spilsbury took it upon herself to document and photograph any existence of the mammals which locals said they had known about for over 30 years.
“Up until recently, most travelers, and even some locals, had no inkling of the aquatic mammals that occupy or pass through Kenya’s waters.”
Spilsbury told CNN, “We literally came from a point of zero information and zero awareness, it seems ridiculous to imagine that nobody knew that the dolphins or whales existed here.”
“We were amazed, because no-one knew there were dolphins out there, not even the Kenya Wildlife Service,” she added in the report.
The discovery of humpback whales in the area has been a game changer, but Spilsbury says she learned about them in a similar casual way.
But according to Turtle Bay Beach Club, Humpback whales, the marine mammal giants of the ocean which is 15 metres in length and 30 tonnes in weight, travel annually in their thousands from the Antarctic to Kenya to breed and have their calves “in our safe tropical waters”.
Both migrations peak between July and September, which means that Kenya hosts the “Twin Migration”, a unique wildlife phenomenon, incorporating both savannah and sea safaris.
This is not the first time CNN has irked Kenyans. In 2015 Kenyans on Twitter roasted the media house for a sensational report on President Barack Obama’s visit to the country, where they said he was going to a “hotbed of terror”.
The broadcaster has been accused in the past of inaccurate reporting on events in Africa. Here is what some Kenyans had to say about the article:
