Save the elephants long term monitoring team normally goes out in the field almost every-other day. On 26-Sep-06 we received a report from Kenya Wildlife Services, who are based in a nearby complex that a female elephant had given birth to twins in Shaba National Reserve, which is situated to the East of Samburu Reserve; unfortunately neither of the calves had survived.
In order to verify the report, David and his team left to visit the scene at around 9:30, with the aim of checking the story about which family the female belonged to, along with other important details like collecting DNA to find out who fathered the calves, etc.
When arriving at the area where the elephants were seen, a line of vultures kept dropping and taking off, guiding us in. From a distance, we spotted an elephant and drove straight towards it, discovering the female standing by two dead calves. She was a female unknown to the researchers present.
As we drove closer, the female started calling (rumbling and touching the dead calves quite frequently, as well as streaming a lot from her glands) as though she were passing a message to us. I carefully drove closer and closer until I became convinced that there were twins present: male and female.
Twins are a rarely encountered in elephant populations- said to form only 1%. Twins have only rarely been recorded in areas where the research of elephants is established. Amboseli, which is one of the oldest elephant research projects in Africa, is known to have recorded a case only once in a population and they have been researching for over thirty years. This is the first case recorded in Samburu.
After ten minutes of watching the mother protecting her two dead calves from approaching vultures, the whole family suddenly emerged from the bush, all running toward the stressed female. There was loud rumbling from the whole group, including the calves present.
We observed cloud of dust and mixed sounds from all the family members: it was impossible for a second to understand what was happening. There was just too much going on!
A minute of silence was observed by all members of the family, including the normally playful calves, as sign of respect to the departed members of the family. Then they all started departing one after the other, leaving the unfortunate mother. I counted about twenty fives animals.
Minutes after the family left, the grieved mother went into near-by shade; she was still watching the decomposing bodies.
Just before we left, we saw two middle-aged calves coming back to scene. They went straight to the dead calves, touched and smelt them, finally deciding to stay with the mother until we left (as it was getting later for us to drive back) although I was positive they were the calves of this female.