Greetings once again from Amboseli. Here in the central part
of the park we are still waiting for the rainy season to truly arrive, as we’ve
just had a few random, brief rain showers. Luckily for the ecosystem as a
whole, it seems to have rained everywhere but
here, so the wildlife can take advantage of fresh grass growing around the
park. Many of the elephants have followed the rain, so we aren’t seeing as many
as we often do. When they do come back into the park they are being very
social, gathering into large groups of multiple families as they like to do
when there is enough food to go around. In the last couple of weeks I’ve seen
an aggregation of close to 300 elephants and another of over 100. It’s always
quite a sight to see so many together, especially when you can just park and
let them come all around you, as we do. Sitting surrounded a crowd of wild
elephants, made up of hundreds of tons of pure strength and power but
completely relaxed, even ignoring the Land Rover, is an unforgettable
experience. I think if everyone had the chance to have that experience,
watching the interactions between mothers and calves and family members, most
people would understand what remarkable animals they are and what a loss it
would be to no longer have wild elephants in the world.
Though we are grateful for the rain in the ecosystem, it is
when the elephants are ranging outside the park boundaries that they often run
into danger. Last month we had three
elephants poached for their ivory tusks. It was a matriarch and her two young
daughters. Between them they left two small calves as orphans. One was rescued
and sent to the elephant orphanage in Nairobi, while the other disappeared and
is now presumed dead. In an area to the east of Amboseli there have been two
bulls speared to death and a female who died of unknown causes, leaving yet
another orphan. Another bull was found in the park with seven spear wounds, but
he was treated by a vet and seems to be recovering. All of these events are
very distressing, as they were named individuals who have been known to the
researchers here since birth or a very young age, but the Amboseli elephants
are still very fortunate when you compare their situation to the dangers faced
by elephants in other parts of Kenya and Africa. ATE and its partners in the
ecosystem are striving constantly to keep this population safe and intact.
Not having as many elephants around means that we are
getting fewer elephant visits to camp, which I mentioned in my last post as one
of the great pleasures of living here. The man we have staying in camp to do
tent repairs, who is apparently not so in awe of that experience, shares a
different perspective: “In other camps where I have worked, the place where the
workers sleep is inside a fence and they have guards. There, you do not have to
be afraid to go to the choo [latrine]
at night. But here the elephants come, even brushing against the makuti [thatched roof made from palm
fronds], and will not let me sleep. I need my rest to do this work.” We have
had a few incidents with elephants in camp since I’ve been here. One
particularly active night an elephant tusked through the back of an
(unoccupied) tent while eating a small
acacia tree growing next to it, and the next morning one of the camp
staff was trapped in his tent for some time because a young elephant was
sleeping on its side right outside the front flap.
I had my own run-in a couple of weeks later. A young male
woke me up in the middle of the night feeding right next to my bed, and I
watched as he slowly moved around to the other side. I have a small privacy
fence at the front of my tent since I’m right in the middle of camp, and he
decided he wanted to eat the grass inside the fence. I watched him for a few
minutes, not wanting to startle him and risk him tearing down the fence as he
backed away. Then he noticed my towel hanging on the line in front of him. He
reached for it, and I decided it was time for him to move along. I told him to go away and knocked on the top
of my desk to make a little noise. He gingerly pulled his head and tusks back
over the fence- and plucked my towel off the line as he went. In the moonlight
I had a clear view as he took a few steps away and proceeded to swing the towel
around with his trunk, slapping it on the ground and his sides before draping
it over his head and walking away. I assumed the stolen towel would disappear in to the palms, never to be seen again, but the next morning we found it at the edge of
camp, filthy and thoroughly chewed on but not torn apart or tusked through. I
woke up the next night to an elephant at the fence again (I strongly suspect it
was the same one, remembering the fun he had had), but I told him to leave a
little more sternly this time and he didn’t have a chance to repeat his prank.
For the people back home, the winner so far for best comment
about me being from Kansas (much better than the typical “Do you know Dorothy?”
which is frankly pretty lazy): [On the suggestion that we watch Footloose one night] “Oh that would be
good. I’m sure Mark could relate to it since he’s from Kansas.” I quickly
explained that, even in Kansas, we do in fact allow dancing. Spreading cultural
awareness!
