Mama Amina should have been given the chance to apply for a license to keep this ostrich. That thought will not leave me after watching what unfolded in Ademasajida, Wajir West Constituency, Wajir County. Aisha the ostrich, rescued as a young bird during one of the most devastating droughts our country has endured, was taken away by the Kenya Wildlife Service after more than a year of being raised, protected, and loved by a family that asked for nothing in return. Mama Amina broke down in tears as Aisha was led away. Anyone who has raised an animal from infancy knows exactly what that grief feels like. This was not a stranger's ostrich to her. This was family. She fed her, sheltered her, and nursed her from a fragile chick into a strong, healthy adult bird. Here is what makes the confiscation harder to accept an ostrich is not a lion, a cheetah, or a leopard. It is not a predator that poses a danger to the community or requires the kind of specialized containment reserved for dangerous game. It is a bird already farmed legally across this country. Kenya's Wildlife Conservation and Management Act permits game farming and ranching for certain birds, ostriches among them, and KWS itself openly invites Kenyans into the business of raising ostriches, crocodiles and other wildlife under license. A permit from KWS is simply a documented, standard step that thousands of Kenyan farmers near Nairobi, Naivasha, and Kitengela have already taken. If a farmer in Naivasha can be licensed to keep and breed ostriches commercially, why could Mama Amina not have been licensed to keep the one she had already raised safely, at no danger to anyone, in a home where the bird was clearly thriving? This is where I choose to see opportunity rather than only loss. Wajir is not an ordinary place when it comes to wildlife and community coexistence. This is a county where giraffes wander freely into town, where residents already live side by side with wild creatures as a matter of daily life, not spectacle. A licensed community caregiver program for a low-risk species like the ostrich would not be a stretch here. It would be a natural extension of what Wajir already lives and models for the rest of the country. It could become a genuine education tool, teaching children and visitors what responsible coexistence with wildlife looks like, anchored around real animals cared for by real families. I do not dispute that wild animals ultimately belong with their own kind, in spaces where they can breed and roam freely. Aisha now moves to an environment where she can live among other ostriches and perhaps raise chicks of her own. That is a good outcome for her but Mama Amina's sacrifice deserves more than a farewell and a truck driving off. Kenya already has a licensing pathway for exactly this kind of relationship between citizen and wildlife, and Aisha was never the kind of animal that demanded she be taken. We should be using that pathway to reward communities who step in when nature fails, not simply reclaiming what they built with their own hands and hearts. As always, I choose to remain an optimist