Recently losing my 15 year-old domestic cat to cancer, I can only imagine Cynthia's personal grief... and not being there at the time. My heart goes out to Cynthia and all of Echo's bereaving ellie friends. Echo will be remembered well... and with joy.

Echo's Family

Cynthia Moss's blog
www.elephanttrust.org
Sun, 2009-05-10

It is one week since Echo died. All of us who have spent so much time with her over the years are now here: Soila, Norah, Katito, Robert, Martyn Colbeck and I.

Martyn flew out from the UK last Sunday and got down to Amboseli on Monday morning. By then Echo had died and her body had been moved to a quiet place that was one of her favorites for resting with the family. I arrived from the US on Tuesday night and flew down to Amboseli on Thursday morning.

We have been keeping a close watch on the rest of the family, which numbers 39--a very large elephant family by any standards. We're in a drought and families break down into smaller groups when food is scarce and patchy anyway, but since her death Echo's family has broken up into five sub-groups. Echo's sister Ella, the next oldest adult female at 44, has gone off with her daughters and calves. She was always the most independent and we're not even sure she knows that Echo is gone. She may have decided to feed in another area before Echo died. The others are staying close by. Echo's oldest daughter Enid, who virtually never left her side, seems the most distraught. Alone with just two of her calves, she shows agitated behavior, has temporal gland secretion and is calling frequently. Echo's other daughters, granddaughters, grandsons and great grandchildren are in a group of 20 led by Eliot, her 24-year-old daughter. We think that Enid will eventually join them and take the lead.

In a fourth group is Eudora, who is 37 years old and is Echo's niece. She leads a subgroup of six including her adult daughter Elspeth and four calves. Enid, Eliot and Eudora's groups are all in the same area but not together. The fifth group is led by Edwina, one of Echo's granddaughers, who has often separated from the rest of the family with her four calves. She's in Ol Tukai Orok near our camp. The others are following Echo's routine of spending the day in the swamp and the night inside the old fence. They have not gone directly to the carcass but lift their trunks and smell it as they walk by. I would give anything to know what they are thinking.

Article at: http://www.elephanttrust.org/node/553

Reading your post creates vivid pictures of the groups and how they are behaving....

This is an occasion where I think animals are the better humans.