Red Giants of Tsavo

Author(s)

Save the Elephants

Date Published

Finding Harmony between Elephants and Farmers

The iconic red colour of Tsavo’s elephants has a story to tell: the region’s iron-rich, mineral-packed soil not only gives these colossal elephants their striking red dust coating, but also helps them grow some of the largest ivory in Africa.

Monitoring and protecting these precious pachyderms – the largest population in Kenya – has become a national priority. Save the Elephants is proud to support one of East Africa’s largest conservation areas through landscape monitoring, aerial anti-poaching surveillance and grassroots coexistence research.

One of Tsavo’s red elephants, a hefty bull with eye-catching long, straight tusks has been named “Goshi” by local farmers (after a nearby river). He is notoriously fond of leaving the safety of the park and searching for snacks in the nearby community of Sagalla, where farmers find elephants like Goshi to be challenging and unpredictable neighbours. That’s where our Tsavo Research & Coexistence Centre comes in.

The notorious Goshi in Tsavo shortly after he was fitted with a tracking collar in August 2024. Photo by Meha Kumar

Originally built in 2013, the old Elephants and Bees Research Centre was renovated and rebranded last year under new leadership, and embarked on a new mission to host Training of Trainers workshops. Over the past year, more than 108 professional staff and community leaders have received training on the tools to help their home communities with practical elephant coexistence techniques. Across eight intensive events, participants studied our Human-Elephant Coexistence Toolbox Manual, packed with 80 different elephant coexistence tools, before heading into the field to meet farmers successfully using these methods to protect their crops from unwelcome visits by Goshi and his elephant friends.

Many of our coexistence methods also enhance livelihoods by introducing alternative income streams. These include honey production from beehive fences, growing and harvesting sunflowers, chilli and sesame – all crops that elephants avoid – as well as creating fashionable baskets, bags and woven craft items for sale.

Fifteen years of work has gone into the research, development and scaling of these coexistence methods for rural farmers living near Tsavo. It’s rewarding to see the tools our team developed, now being shared with partners around the continent.

Since its publication, we have distributed more than 1,400 of our HEC Toolbox manuals to almost every elephant range state, and supported some sites with grants allocated from our Elephant Crisis Fund to ensure coexistence lessons learnt in Tsavo can be scaled continentally. Every community in Africa struggling with human-elephant conflict has farmers needing protection and food security support – just as we find elephants like Goshi needing the same. Practical, low-cost, scalable solutions are key to balancing elephant conservation and human well-being as Africa moves toward its 2030 sustainable development goals.

We are incredibly grateful to our donors for supporting this journey – transforming fundamental elephant behaviour research into science-based solutions that keep both farmers and elephants safe. We hope you will continue to invest in our mission to scale our coexistence solutions even further.

In 2024, more than 150 professional staff and community leaders were trained in the tools to help their communities with practical elephant coexistence techniques. Photo by Kirstie Ruppert/San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance

 

SINCE ITS PUBLICATION WE HAVE DISTRIBUTED MORE THAN 1,400 OF OUR HEC TOOLBOX MANUALS TO ALMOST EVERY ELEPHANT RANGE STATE