About 3 weeks before I arrived at STE a famous matriarch of The Virtues, named Resilience, was shot and killed along with some of her family members. This included a younger female named Enthusiasm who was shot multiple times and died within walking distance of the first gunshot. Three days into my internship I was invited to do what I call “the walk of death” with Jake Wall and David Daballen in order to document Enthusiasm’s last footsteps before she died. Jake wanted to get exact GPS coordinates for his records in order to better understand exactly how the situation played out that dreadful night.
We started approximately where a witness informed us they heard gunshots. We then walked along the elephant’s path, hearing gruesome details along the way as we followed the once bloody trail of the family as they ran towards Buffalo Springs National Reserve. We got to the point where Enthusiasm split off from Resilience and a few hundred meters later found her remains. The entire walk was painful as I envisioned the fearful elephant running for her life down the same path I calmly walked on now. This, I thought, is probably the most heart-wrenching experience I’ll have as an intern for Save the Elephants. And yet, to my dismay, Hope was shot the following week.
Ian happened to be in camp when we heard rumors of gunshots just outside of Isiolo. The next morning we confirmed the death of another member of The Virtues Family. This time it was Hope who was lost to the ivory trade. We needed to see what happened so the next plan of action was to go examine the carcass. This required a lot of team work and collaboration, and luckily I was allowed to be a part of this well-organized operation.
David and his ground crew were sent in Land Cruisers to see if they could find her first. Ian took me, another Intern, Trey, his spotting expert, Gilbert and a friend up in the plane. At first I was ecstatic! I’ve only been in a small plane once before about 4 years ago and I was excited to get a chance to see the park from a bird’s eye view now that I’ve driven most of the roads. Little did I know I would be in the worst seat possible: the very back of a 4-seater plane. I was content to take photos for the first half hour, and then I tried to help locate the elephant for the next half hour, but by 1.5 hours I was ready to be done. However, I managed to hang on to my lunch and in the course of 2.2 hours we not only found Hope but we led the ground crew to her via radio communication, and then found her remaining family members nearby.
The whole operation was a sight to behold as we flew in low, tight circles over the bush with the vehicles following our commands on the ground. On the other hand, seeing Hope was brutal for me as I’d never before seen a recently poached elephant in person. Even from the air she stood out like a sore thumb and looked completely out of place lying on her side on the ground. Although I didn’t get to see her up close the view from the plane was enough. But even worse was finding her family. The remaining 5 young elephants were huddled around the only big tree they could find in a relatively starch, over-grazed landscape, dreadfully close to human settlements. From the air they looked so small and vulnerable. You could tell they were nervous and unsettled. I think what hits me the hardest is knowing two adult females from the same family have been lost in such a short period of time—with dependent calves left to fend for themselves.
Overall, I was grateful for the opportunity to partake in this event, interested in the process STE goes through when poaching occurs, nauseated by tight circles in the plane and saddened by what I saw below me. For me personally though, I felt accomplished at the end of the day for having participated in this event but mainly for having walked off the plane without officially getting sick. Thank you Ian for telling me I passed with flying colors! I think one plane ride is enough for another 4 years or so.