Effective elephant conservation begins with understanding elephants themselves. For more than three decades, Save the Elephants has studied their behaviour, intelligence, and movements, building one of the longest-running bodies of elephant research in Africa. Long-term monitoring of individual elephants in Samburu reveals how families live, grow, and respond to change across generations, while tracking collars follow their journeys across landscapes and borders, and censuses and surveys measure how populations are faring over time.
This knowledge reaches well beyond Kenya. Through the Continental Tracking Initiative and its role in the IUCN SSC African Elephant Specialist Group, STE helps strengthen the science guiding elephant conservation across the continent, and its research now informs efforts to return orphaned elephants to the wild. Together, this work forms the foundation for everything that follows, translating scientific insight into practical solutions for elephant survival and coexistence with people.
