It is a pleasure to be able to write again. I have been with Save the Elephants for almost 10 months now, following our known individuals on a near daily basis and collecting dung samples for my future graduate research. Amid the mounting tasks of monitoring, collecting, managing, participating in outreach, and research proposal writing duties, I have been left with no time since April to contribute to STE’s blog. Thankfully things have settled down slightly, and I hope to once again write periodic posts.
Today I want to describe a very interesting little fellow in our population. As of late he has been causing quite a stir among tour guides, tourists, and community members, releasing a flood of phone calls to David Daballen and Jerenimo Lepirei, two of the senior long-term monitors on site. Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) has received an earful as well. The young elephant in question is called R25.9613 (see the post from February 5th called “The Perks of Family” for an explanation of this naming scheme). He was born in September of 2013 to R25.96, more fondly known as Violet, of the Artists 2 family. Unfortunately, Violet died of unknown natural causes in May of this year; her carcass was discovered near Ashnil Camp in Buffalo Springs. Since that time, R25.9613 has written an intriguing and touching story with his behavior.
I was the first to come upon the Artists 2 family following Violet’s death. We had not seen them for 2-3 weeks. One-and-a-half years is quite a young age to lose a mother, as milk still comprises a significant amount of an elephant’s diet at this time. I was convinced I would find an emaciated calf. Much to my surprise and delight, I found Violet’s orphan looking relatively plump and healthy. It did not take long to discover why. He was following Violet’s younger 12-year-old sister R25.03 (Frida) everywhere she went. Frida not only tolerated R25.9613, but (being near normal calf-bearing years, at which time young females seem to develop an especial affinity for young calves) she appeared to enjoy having this extra shadow. I then witnessed something very rare – Frida allowed R25.9613 to suckle from her. Elephant calves are rarely allowed to suckle from anyone other than their mother. I cannot imagine he was receiving any milk, because Frida has never had a calf. But I am sure it was a great comfort to him to be able to go through the motions of nursing. Perhaps this was affording him strength to eat enough, and so remain healthy enough to survive.
It would become a familiar sight for several months. We would come upon the family to find R25.9613 always hanging close to Frida, sometimes comfort suckling. He also spent a fair amount of time near R25.9002, his 13-year-old cousin named Rothko. Frida and Rothko are interesting elephants by themselves. Both orphans (Frida at age 6 and Rothko at age 9, both due to gunshot wounds), these two are great friends. During the dry seasons, at which times elephants split off into smaller groups to deal with the more sparse distribution of resources, Rothko and Frida would often go off on their own, just the two of them. They made a comic duo due to the fact that Frida has a very broken left ear, while Rothko has a broken right ear. One of our past interns called them the Broken Ear Club. I always loved coming upon these two girls. During the most recent dry season, I would love it even more. The dynamic duo became a terrific, floppy-eared, mismatched, motherless trio, new small member in tow, feeding their way across the scrub.
So it continued for a good while. Then one day I was surprised to see Frida refuse R25.9613 her breast. She was not rude – she did not kick or push him away as I have witnessed others do in the same situation. When he went for her nipple, she just rumbled, quiet but deep. It was obvious what she had said, because he immediately retreated with no further argument. I suspect she had told him before, and further suspect that her reason is pregnancy. She is due to be primiparous, and likely knows this means that R25.9613 must be “weaned” in order that she may conserve the energy and resources for her own coming calf.
Other changes were coming. On September 29th, Rothko had her first calf, a little female. Things were shifting. For reasons we may never be quite sure of, R25.9613 began wandering further and further from his family. One day he would be with them, the next he might be seen on his own. Maybe nature was driving him to conserve energy, as his movement became less than that of his family. We have seen unexpected behavior in young orphaned individuals, who have left to form groups with other orphans, wander between families, or be accepted with seemingly no question into a family completely different from their own. R25.9613 developed a style of his own as well. Besides very cleverly remaining close to Elephant Bedroom Camp when alone, eating all of the good food growing there and dissuading the approach of potential predators with proximity to humans, R25.9613 has decided to occasionally hang with the big boys. I have seen him alone with bulls 30 times his weight, again a comical sight. And again this little guy was bringing out the best in other elephants, because these bulls 100% tolerated his presence.
Enter B1200, aka Mabo. We do not know where Mabo came from. His presence was first catalogued a few years back, so he likely dispersed from a different population. At an estimated age of 14, he is already larger than many of the adult females, and looks distinctively male. But that did not prevent me from momentarily mistaking him for a female when I happened upon him one afternoon. Why? Because R25.9613 was following Mabo around as though he were his mother. Mabo was, as others, completely tolerant of R25.9613. The relationship was different with him though. R25.9613 would merely hang out within 10-20 meters of other bulls. With Mabo, he followed two steps behind wherever he went. When Mabo would stop to eat, R25.9613 would stop to eat right next to him. It is one of the sweetest things I have ever witnessed. I saw the pair of them feeding together at Elephant Bedroom from across the river again a week or so ago. They are pals indeed. I will always wonder what it is about Mabo that attracted R25.9613. Regardless, together with Frida and Rothko, B1200 will forever hold a special place in my heart for the way he was with R25.9613.
From all of this, one can clearly see that R25.9613 is well known by the elephants in this area, and that he holds strong connections to many of them, regardless of whether he is sometimes alone. Understandably, seeing an elephant calf alone has concerned many people within and surrounding the reserve, resulting in the phone calls mentioned in the second paragraph. There has been a recent push to send R25.9613 to Sheldrick Orphanage in Nairobi, for fear that he will be predated upon by lions. On behalf of all of us here at the STE research camp, who watch these elephants daily and know their histories, I ask that KWS and all involved decide to leave R25.9613 where he is. The stress of being moved from his home and a community that well-accepts him, as well as from a family he still has connections with, would be far more detrimental to his health and well being than the small chance that he will be taken by lions. As previously mentioned, he is very clever, staying safely near Elephant Bedroom and in the company of other protectors like good ole Mabo. On top of that, he has done well for himself the past six months, eating and remaining healthy, reaching the two-year mark. I support the work that Sheldrick Orphanage does; although controversial, I believe there are times when intervention is the most humane course of action, especially if a very young elephant is left orphaned by anthropogenic causes and is no longer being accepted by her/his family. However, this is not such a case, and intervention would be inappropriate, causing much more harm than good. I ask for support in defending the right of this interesting little guy to remain where he is, in the home he knows and with the elephants who know and look after him. It is our hope that R25.9613 is allowed to continue writing his story here in Samburu.