Stories

Elephant Death at Buffalo Springs, Samburu

On The 25th of February 2011, poachers who shot an adult male elephant, made away with both of her tusks, leaving the elephant wounded. Unfortunately, the elephant succumbed to the gun shot wounds. The locals living in that area had heard the...

Stuck in the Mud

Smatterings of rain and one impressive dawn thunderstorm have proven a successful (if inconvenient) elephant deterrent thus halting sound experiments for the last three days. The one family that didn’t appear to mind was the First Ladies. Two days...

The Death of Resilience

Hello everyone, this is my second dispatch from Kenya, February 9, 2011 I have some sad news. Resilience succumbed to her bullet wounds and has perished. We found her yesterday in an open plain where she spent her last hours. Allow me to tell...

Interning with Save the Elephants – Kylie Butler

Hey, it’s Kylie here – starting off the year as a new intern for STE. I have a background in Ecology and Sustainability, and am currently doing my Masters of Environmental Studies with Melbourne University in Australia. I’ve been lucky enough...

Karibu Samburu

Arriving in Samburu after a few days in Nairobi feels like I’ve landed on another planet. A beautiful, peaceful and completely natural planet. I wake up in the mornings to the sounds of hornbills and sights of vervet monkeys playing in the trees...

Dust – my first dispatch from Kenya

Hello everyone, this is my first dispatch from Kenya, February 5, 2011 Dust: Driving down from the plateaus of Mount Kenya, we entered dry country. In Samburu National Reserve I squinted my eyes to scan across the arid plain where a line of...

Collaring Mercury

We found the Planets near the Ngare Mara swamps on the morning of the 28th. STE has wanted to collar this family for some time, as they use areas south of the reserves and can teach us a lot about elephant movement in this area. Though I've seen...

An injured Resilience

We heard that there was a poached elephant near Attan on the 19th. The following day we found Resilience, the matriarch of the Virtues, standing in the Ewaso, skinny, listless, and alone. When we got closer we saw blood coming down her front right...

Collaring Graca

Today we set out to immobilize Graca (M17.86) and her 7-month old calf (M17.8610) of the First Ladies family with Virginia Pearson of the Department of Molecular Biology at Princeton University and the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia....