On an email from Soila Sayialel this morning "Amboseli is green again and elephants are starting to come into the Park".

This is such great news! Hopefully the "regular" Amboseli elephants will come back. Until they are all back in the park it will be difficult for the Elephant Trust people to census them and know how many died and who survived the drought. We can only hope the majority survived by finding food in other areas.

Cynthia Moss sent a message to the members of Amboseli Trust for Elephants.

Subject: Good News

"I just got word that our research camp received 30mm (over an inch) of rain
last night. This is the first good rain we've had since last April. There has been
heavy and widespread rain outside the Park and in those areas there is now
abundant vegetation. The elephants and other wildlife in the Amboseli ecosystem
are beginning to recover. I think we can safely say the drought is over."

I'm so glad to hear there was finally significant rain in Amboseli park. There has been such a deficit of rain in the last three years that I'm not sure I would declare "the drought is over". Hopefully, there will be more rain in the weeks and months to come. Let's keep our fingers crossed.

Cynthia Moss January 7:

The drought is truly over. Last night we recorded 31mm of rain. Adding that to the 30mm on the 2nd and the accumulated smaller amounts in December, Amboseli now has had enough rain to begin to recover.

That's wonderful news! I'm surprised she hasn't posted this on her elephanttrust blog site.

Jan - They just posted it now on elephanttrust site. Nice to know you scooped the news! You would have made a darn good newspaper reporter!