One of the 87 elephants currently being tracked by Save The Elephants in Northern Kenya has been found dead. Her body was found on Tuesday morning with a bullet hole in the head in the Nasuulu community conservancy. Dvorak, an adult female from the Composers family, has been wearing a satellite tracking device since 3rd September when she was collared on the Lewa Conservancy.
“Dovrak was an extraordinary elephant. She is the only one we have tracked that ever went from Lewa all the way through Samburu then all the way down east of Isiolo. She came back to meet her death,” said Iain Douglas-Hamilton, founder of Save The Elephants.
On the 1st of December she ventured into the Nasuulu community conservancy and roamed freely through the southern part of Buffalo Springs National Reserve. She then moved into an area of thicker acacia forest, possibly after having been wounded, and spent several days walking within a small area. On the 8th of December her collar stopped moving. A team of conservancy rangers found her carcass in a stream-bed, her tusks in place. Whoever shot the 25-30 year-old female did not benefit from her death.
Save The Elephants tracks elephants to better understand their movements and aid the survival of the species through managing conflict between elephants and humans.