News from the Amboseli Elephants

NEW EMAIL NEWSLETTER
Greetings!

I am excited and pleased to announce that we are launching an e-newsletter today. Although I send out a long letter at the end of each year and we do have an interactive website, I still feel out of touch with some friends and supporters of the project for the rest of the year. With an e-newsletter I will be able to send news and updates at least once a month directly to your e-mail address so that you won't miss any important developments.. There is certainly no lack of news about the Amboseli elephants. Watching elephants is often like a soap opera. ATE activities and research results are also newsworthy. I think a newsletter is an excellent way to get this information to all of you.

This first newsletter is an experiment so forgive it's clumsiness. Any feedback would be greatly appreciated. If you have friends whom you think would enjoy receiving news from Amboseli please add them to our mailing list.

Cynthia Moss
Director
Amboseli Trust for Elephants



The Drought of 2009

Dry Amboseli
Last year Amboseli -- elephants and other wildlife, people and livestock -- underwent the worst drought in living memory, the culmination of three years of poor rainfall. By the start of the dry season of the third year, September 2009, animals began to die in in large numbers. Soon there were carcasses everywhere strewn over the dry, barren ground. It was truly a horrific sight, hard on everyone who had to witness it.

In December rains finally came to areas outside the Park and then in the Park in January. Good rains continued to fall for the next few months. Vegetation was soon growing and the landscape was transformed.

In early March the Kenya Wildlife Service together with the Tanzanian wildlife authorities and NGOs including the Amboseli Trust for Elephants, conducted a total aerial count of the greater Amboseli ecosystem. The results revealed that 83% of the wildebeests, 71% of the zebras, and 61% of the buffaloes perished. Over the whole ecosystem 60% of the cattle died and in the areas around Amboseli the loss was as high as 80%.

The elephants were not spared. We are still collecting data on the mortalities as the families and bulls are sighted in the Park and can be censused. So far we know that close to 300 elephants (almost 20% of the population) died. Most tragically this number included at least 60 adult females, many of them matriarchs, a devastating loss because they were the leaders and repositories of knowledge for their families.

These old females were individuals we had known since the early 70s and losing them felt like losing old friends. As painful as it has been we need to continue the research. We must watch carefully to see how each family reacts to its losses. Who will become the new matriarch? Will the others follow her lead or will sub-groups splinter off? Will some families with few remaining members join up with other families? Will orphans find a place within their family or move on their own? How quickly will females recover and start breeding again? The data we will collect over the next year is vital for our understanding of the social dynamics and reproduction recovery among elephants. For these reasons it is important that the families and independent bulls be monitored more intensively than ever.

We need funds for monitoring and are asking for your help for the following:

One vehicle dedicated exclusively to monitoring at least six days a week
One year = $9.000
One month = $750
One day = $30

One highly experienced researcher out at least six days a week carrying out special censuses and recording grouping patterns and social and sexual behavior
One year = $12,000
One month = $1,000
One day = $40

Let's hope this is a once-in-100-years' opportunity to witness this kind of social disruption in an elephant population. We don't want the elephants ever to undergo a drought like this one again, but at the same time we must learn as much from it as we can. We need your help to do this.

The Upsurge in Poaching and Illegal Ivory Trade
Amboseli's Magnificent Bulls are in Danger

On top of the drought, poaching of elephants for their ivory started up again after nearly 20 years of peace for Kenya's elephants. After the ban in international ivory trade was implemented in January 1990, poaching all but stopped in Kenya and elephant numbers slowly began to rise. Then in 2008 a few months after China was allowed to buy ivory stockpiles from some of the southern African countries that had had their bans lifted, we began to get disturbing reports of people requesting to purchase ivory. We believe that the stockpile sales started a demand in China. With many Chinese companies working in Kenya we heard that ivory was being bought by the Chinese workers. At the same time the interceptions of shipments of tons of illegal ivory were reported in Thailand, Vietnam and the Philippines. At the international airport in Nairobi several shipments of ivory were stopped with the aid of sniffer dogs. Most of this ivory appeared to come from outside the country.

In 2008 we recorded nine definite cases of tusks being removed from elephants who may have been poached or died of other causes. This was the first time ivory had been stolen from carcases in Amboseli for many years. In the first months of 2009 there began to be definite cases of poaching in the Amboseli ecosystem and in nearby Tsavo. Additional reports of poaching were coming in from other parts of Kenya. The official poaching figures for Kenya from the Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) revealed that 47 elephants were poached in 2007; 145 in 2008; and 204 in 2009. This increase was very disturbing for all of us concerned with elephant conservation. No one wanted a repeat of the horrific time in the 1970s and 1980s when Kenya lost 85% of her elephants.

KWS is working hard at both the ground level and through regional and international forums to try to stem the poaching. In Amboseli we are doing what we can, but we desperately need more support to stop the local trade in ivory before it gets deep into the economy. Amboseli National Park is only 150 square miles; the ecosystem over which the elephants roam is 5000 square miles. On any given day, of the 1200 elephants making up the population only about 300 might be in the Park itself. Therefore, it is necessary to secure the whole Amboseli ecosystem, not just the Park. For the moment the Maasai are on our side, but if there are people out there asking for tusks and paying huge amounts for them, then we could lose the battle.

There is no doubt that it is the attitude of the local people that really makes all the difference. What exists now on the community level is a force of about 90 Maasai anti-poaching scouts in the areas surrounding Amboseli. They form the Amboseli-Tsavo Game Scouts Association (ATGSA), but they are miserably under-funded. Two months ago two strategic scouts' camps had to be closed down for lack of money for salaries and rations. These two camps are south of Amboseli National Park on the border with Tanzania. With this international border so close it is easy for poachers to come across, kill one of the Amboseli elephants, and go back into Tanzania where there are networks of buyers and smugglers

We can prevent poaching in the Amboseli area. It happened during the intensive poaching years in 1970s and 1980s. The only place in all of Kenya where the elephant population grew was Amboseli. It was partly because we researchers were there on the ground and partly because the Maasai were not killing elephants themselves and did not allow poaching on their land. Good relations with the Maasai are key and our community outreach program--providing jobs, incentives and education--is essential.

There are two ways in which you can help protect the elephants:

1) We need to support the ATGSA anti-poaching scouts. In particular we want to get the two camps on the border set up and running again. The cost of running two camps:

One year = $29,280
One month = $2,440
One day = $80

2) The Amboseli Trust for Elephants has 15 scouts of its own that function both as researchers and sources of information on poaching and other problems relating to elephants. They are the ambassadors for elephants out in the Maasai group ranches and are very important for engendering positive attitudes towards elephants and the research project. It has and continues to be a very successful part of our project. To supervise and support 15 research scouts costs:

One year = $18,120
One month = $1510
One day = $60
A donation in any amount will definitely help to keep our wonderful bulls and big females safe.


Recovery
Erica at 4 years old with her mother Erin

In this first newsletter and subsequent ones, we promise we won't just send news of crises and disasters. There are good stories coming out of Amboseli as well. We are happy to report that the ecosystem got enough rain to turn everything green and productive once again. The elephants are definitely recovering physically, even if we don't yet know the long-term social and psychological effects of losing so many leaders.

Some females miraculously carried calves through the drought and gave birth in 2010. So far we have recorded 24 births. One of the females was Erica of the EB family. She is the orphaned daughter of Erin, who died as a result of spearing in 2003, leaving several calves. Erica, who is also Echo's granddaughter, was only five years old at the time, but the EB family is a very nurturing one, and she survived along with her younger brother E-Mail. In fact, Erica did well enough to reach sexual maturity and come into estrus when she was just 10 years old, which is young (the average is 12) and shows she got the nutrition and care she needed.

Much to our surprise, given the dreadful conditions of 2009, Erica gave birth in March 2010, which meant she conceived in May 2008 and maintained the 22-month pregnancy right through the drought. The calf, a female, was small at birth but healthy and is now five months old. It is hard enough raising a first calf for a young mother, but much, much harder when that female's mother has died. Well done, Erica, you have done your mother and grandmother proud.

The good outcomes, such as Erica's success, are the stories that keep us going. I hope they are also the ones that interest you in elephants and the Amboseli project.

The elephants of Amboseli are a unique and valuable natural heritage for Kenya and the world. We are in a fight to keep them safe and we need your help. Please donate whatever you can and please forward this e-mail to friends (see link below to Forward email) so that they can sign up to receive future newsletters.

Cynthia Moss
Amboseli Trust for Elephants

(Poster's note) Please go to http://www.elephanttrust.org and use the "Sign up for our
Email Newletter" in the menu on the left by entering your email address and the newsletter will come directly to you.

News from the Amboseli Trust for Elephants
September 2010

Dear Jan,

I have had many positive messages about ATE's first newsletter which went out in August. Thank you for your interest and encouraging words. I will now try to send a newsletter out each month.

I have started a new section of the ATE website called Family Histories. People have been asking me to do this for several years now. There are presently 58 elephant families in Amboseli. Each is unique and each has its own personality, its own history. It will take me a long time but I think these histories should be saved for both their scientific value and for posterity. See the beginning of the history for the AA family in the third article below.

Please remember to go to the bottom of this newsletter and click on the Forward E-Mail button to sign up your friends. We need more people on our mailing list.

With thanks for your concern and support,

Cynthia Moss

Director
Amboseli Trust for Elephants



Winston (photo)
Slaughter of the Bulls

In the previous newsletter I reported on the upsurge of poaching of elephants for ivory. The reality hit us hard in August with the death of three Amboseli bulls. On August 28th, the Field Assistants received a message that there was a dead bull out west of the Park near the Tanzanian border. At the same time there was a report of a dead male to the east near Kimana sanctuary. ATE Researchers Norah Njiraini and Katito Sayialel drove to Kimana; Robert Ntawuasa went to the west. Norah and Katito found a young bull who had been speared multiple times, his tusks hacked out, and his carcass covered with branches. They could not recognize who it was. The male in the west turned out to be Winston, a very well-known Amboseli bull. Putting together various reports it was deduced that Winston was shot in Tanzania and staggered across the border and died in Kenya.

The Kenya Wildlife Service wardens and rangers investigated both of the carcasses but too much time had passed to be able to track the poachers.Winston's Carcass

Winston was born to Willa of the WA family in January 1980. He was one of a sub-set of 14 calves I studied that year and so I spent many hours with him in his first year of life. When he was killed he was 30 years old and just entering the prime of his life. What a loss and what a waste.

At least Winston died relatively quickly which can't be said of Keyhole, a big bull fully in his prime at 40 years old. He was the son of Esmeralda of the EA family. Born in 1970, he was just a two-year old when we first met him. He got his name because he had a keyhole-shaped slit in the bottom of his left ear. A few years ago he broke the same ear and that made him even easier to identify. Keyhole came into musth regularly and we feel fairly confident that he sired some offspring.

Keyhole

The poachers have devised a new and very cruel way of killing elephants. They embed spikes or nails in a piece of wood, cover the spikes with a powerful poison, and bury it on an elephant path. We had been hearing about these spike traps for a while and several elephants have died from what appeared to be wounds in their feet. It wasn't until another conservationist sent us a photo of one of these traps found outside of Tsavo National Park that we realized how deadly they are. SpikeTrap

Keyhole was reported limping badly in June. The Kenya Wildlife Service Veterinary Department was alerted and a vet came down and treated him. He did not improve and was treated again, but it did not help. It was obvious that he was in terrible agony: he could barely walk and his whole body was swollen. We are fairly sure he stepped on poisoned spikes. KWS decided to shoot him, but then he was found dead on August 18.

We can't bear to have another elephant die in this way. Please help us fight this despicable killing method. We need people out searching for these traps.


New Research Project

We are very pleased to welcome back Beth Archie who carried out her Ph.D. research on genetics and social relationships of the Amboseli elephants from 2000 to 2003. In July and August, Beth Archie, now an Assistant Professor at the University of Notre Dame, came to Amboseli to start a new project that will help ATE understand patterns of infectious disease in the Amboseli elephants.
Katito & Beth Collect Parasites

Currently, we know very little about how infectious disease spreads between elephant groups, or why one elephant is more susceptible to disease than another. This is in spite of the fact that infectious disease can pose major threats to the stability of wild elephant populations. Beth is working in collaboration with research scientist, Vincent Obanda at Kenya Wildlife Service, and together they are using dung samples to characterize the major elephant gut parasites in Ambosel--from worms to "enteric" bacteria, such as E. coli and Salmonella. Beth and Vincent will use their data to learn which elephants and social groups are susceptible to these infectious agents and how elephant social relationships and ranging patterns might drive the spread of disease across the population. Their results will give us a first look into patterns of infection in the Amboseli elephants and provide valuable information for managing future disease threats.

Wart Ear & Offspring at Swamp Edge (photo)

The History of the AA Family

The AA family holds a very special place in the Amboseli study, because it is the first family that was sighted and photographed on the very first day of the study on September 1, 1972. It has since become one of the best-known families in the population. I have continuous records of its births and deaths, good times and bad times over the past 38 years.

On that first day I was with my colleague Harvey Croze and we were trying to contact as many groups of elephants as possible and photograph at least the adult members. We drove out to the western part of the Park crossing the causeway over the Enkongo Narok swamp. Just along the shore we found a group of females and calves. Unfortunately, they were disappearing into the deep swamp, but we managed to count 13 animals and note that there were two calves less than a year old. Harvey took some photographs of the adult females. Two days later on September 3rd we came upon this group again and this time we were able to get better photographs and record the age and sex structure.

To read the whole history of the AA family go to: Amboseli Trust for Elephants website


Sex Change
Recently I spent some time with the EB family in order to get a photo of Erica's new calf whose birth I reported on in the last newsletter. I easily found them and got in a position to take the photos. I took several pictures of the calf exploring her environment, following her mother, and suckling. Then somewhat to my surprise I suddenly noticed that this calf was not a female as we had originally recorded but was very much and very obviously a male.

Erica's New Male Calf
Elephant calves are not that easy to sex when they are infants but it's also not that difficult for experienced researchers. However, if we don't look carefully enough we sometimes get it wrong. A few calves have remained in the records with the wrong sex for as long as four years before we noticed the mistake.

I am happy to report that Erica's little male calf is doing well. I thought you might help me find a name for him. We've used almost every "E" name in the Names for Babies books, so it will have to be an unusual name. For each donation of $10 or more you can submit a name. Once I get a good number I will chose the winner who will then receive a full history of the family, a current family tree, a photo of the calf, and periodic updates during his lifetime. (This will be a great bargain for the winner, because the usual donation required to name a calf is $2500.) You can make the donation through our website and submit the name or names through the visitors' forum or by sending us an email.

We have been going through some difficult and depressing times with the drought and now the poaching, but we will never give up. Spending time with the elephants who survived gives us new strength to fight for their future. We want Erica's little male to grow up to be a magnificent musth bull who will father many offspring. Please help us.

Cynthia Moss
Amboseli Trust for Elephants

Poster's note: Please be sure to go to Amboseli Trust for Elephants website at http://www.elephanttrust.org/ to see all the photos accompanying these newsletters. Also, if you are interested in elephants sign up for their monthly newsletter. I encourage any who can to please make a donation to help save the Amboseli elephants.

News from the Amboseli Trust for Elephants

November 2010

Dear Jan,

I truly wish I could just give you only happy news of the Amboseli elephants, and there is definitely good news, but there also continues to be very disturbing news. The poaching seems to be escalating. Just during the past 10 days at least five more elephants were poached. In one of the cases, a lodge managers outside the Park heard gunfire but there was little he could do. An airplane would have helped, a helicopter would have been even better. The area where two of the bulls were killed is very thick bush and uneven terrain and is impenetrable by vehicle. Norah and Soila had to go in on foot to try to identify one of the individuals, but the poachers had cut off the ears, and without both the tusks and ears no ID was possible. All they could determine was that he was a big bull on his last set of molars which would make him 45 or older. In other words he was one of Amboseli's magnificent bulls.

It is heartbreaking and very discouraging but we can't give up. In the stories below you'll see why elephants are so special and why we must keep fighting for them.

With greeting rumbles,

Cynthia Moss

Director
Amboseli Trust for Elephants

Where in the world was KWS in all this? And the international community in this ongoing massacre of Kenya's elephants? And INTERPOL going after these international criminal gangs?
China is clearly behind this slaughter. Is Kenya and the world content to give these guys every last elephant and rhino?

When traveling to Kenya last March, I saw limos from the Chinese embassy slowing cruising past herds of elephants in both Amboseli and East Tsavo.....picking out their next consignment of ivory?

This treacherous murder has to end.... will it end only when the last elephant is dead and its tusks carted off to China?

Thanks Jan for bringing us the truth, as painful as it is....but next, what can be done before it's too late?

News from the Amboseli Trust for Elephants

December 2010

Dear Jan,

With Thanksgiving just past and more holidays coming up it is the season to be jolly, and we do have some reasons for celebrating. Amboseli National Park is looking exceptionally gorgeous because we've had light, but steady rains off and on since late October. In camp everything is green, the birds are singing once again, the vervet monkeys are having new babies, the impalas are mating, the warhog piglets are just emerging from their dens, and most important to us, the elephants that come through are fat and relaxed. I know there are still problems for them outside the Park, and I'll write more about that below, but when they're here they are simply enjoying being elephants.

In this issue I've managed to get some of colleagues to contribute articles. I think it makes for a more varied and interesting newsletter. Harvey Croze reports on a retreat of the Kenya Elephant Forum and Soila Sayialel writes about the amazing re-appearance of a young female elephant we thought had died.

I hope things are generally good for all of you who follow our activities and are concerned about the future of the Amboseli elephants. I want to take this opportunity to thank you for your interest and support over the last year. You matter a great deal to us and we appreciate all that you do to keep us going.

Please remember to go to the bottom of this newsletter and click on the Forward to a Friend button below to sign up your friends. We need more people on our mailing list.

With best regards,

Cynthia Moss

Director

Amboseli Trust for Elephants

Two Poachers Shot Outside of Amboseli

On November 25, two poachers were shot dead just south of Amboseli National Park by a Kenya Wildlife Service anti-poaching team. A high-calibre rifle was recovered. A third man was injured but escaped into Tanzania along with two others.

It is very disturbing that people are dying in this battle to protect elephants, and we wish that it hadn't come to this, but people with weapons roaming around near a National Park full of tourists is a major security issue as well as a conservation issue.

KWS needed to send a very strong message that this kind of insecurity cannot be tolerated. We commend the brave rangers who risked their lives.

The poachers were found in the area where two bulls were poached earlier in November. Since the shoot-out the area south of the Park has been quiet, but at least one more elephant was poached to the east of the Park in December.

The two magnificent musth bulls, Sioma and Qaboos, in the photo above are fighting for dominance and the right to mate with females. We have to fight to to make sure these massive, amazing animals can go on with their lives. The war against poaching continues; as long as the demand is out there and the ivory trade is lucrative, elephants will be killed for their tusks. We need to fight on all fronts. Please support our work with a donation.

African Elephant Forum Retreat by Harvey Croze

ATE is an active member of the Kenya Elephant Forum (KEF), a lively group of like-minded NGOs who are at the forefront of supporting governments that oppose the ivory trade.

Pat Awori, chairperson of the Pan African Wildlife Conservation Network and convener of KEF, orgainised a two-day retreat at the Elsamere Conservation Centre on the shores of Lake Naivasha during the last week of November.

The purpose was to map out strategic actions necessary to ensure the future of Africa's elephants to be undertaken in the aftermath of the 15th Conference of the Parties of CITES held in Doha last March and the 16th meeting to be held in Thailand in 2013.

Pat Awori (centre, red) and KEF members

Among a number of specific actions, the retreat elaborated on an exciting new solution for what to do with the tonnes of ivory that Range States are stockpiling from natural mortality and the growing poaching seizures.

Rather than burn the ivory as Kenya did 21 years ago -- spectacular and effective, but terribly wasteful -- how about an Ivory Museum, constructed entirely of whole tusks? Like all innovations, it may sound crazy at first, but the 'Pachy Dome' may just work (you can thank me for the working name; somewhat better than my first suggestion, the 'Tusk Mahal'!).

You can read more details about the retreat at our ATE website. And stay tuned for further developments...

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Dorothea after her Return
The Amazing Return of Dorothea
by Soila Sayialel

The prolonged, severe drought of 2009 claimed so many Amboseli elephants, and those losses are evident in the remaining family units that we are recording today. The drought affected the dynamics within the elephant families -- many family units had to split into smaller groups for effective grazing.

One example occurred in the DB family when a young adult female born in 1991, named Dorothea, suddenly disappeared from her group with her eight year-old-female calf named Dahlia. Dorothea is the sixth-born to the matriarch Deborah who is one of the few remaining older matriarchs in the Amboseli population. Dorothea and Dahlia were last recorded in the census sheets on 17 February 2009. The DBs were sighted several times without these two for almost twenty months. During this time we all thought the worst for Dorothea and her calf. In fact, we presumed they were dead.

To everybody's amazement, on the 29th of October 2010, almost two years later, Dorothea and Dahlia re-appeared and, more surprisingly, they were accompanied by Dorothea's one-year-old male calf looking healthy. Dorothea must have accompanied other families that had better luck raising their young calves especially those families that ranged further to the north of Amboseli, such as the VAs, MAs, WAs or KAs. It is a victory to see a young mother being so successful and always a joy to see a new calf come out of a really difficult time.

(To read a complete history of the D families see the next story.)

The History of the DA, DB and DC Families

The 'D' females and the families they make up have always been something of a mystery. In fact, the Ds have a history of doing things elephants are not "supposed to do". In the beginning the Ds were thought to be one family. What was eventually designated the DA family was photographed on the very first day of the study on September 1, 1972. Two adult females were present: a large old matriarch whom we named Dorothy and a much younger female we called Dinah. The next time this family was seen on August 4, 1973 there was a third adult female present and she was photographed and named Delia. Over the next few months other females were seen in association with the D females but always in a variety of odd combinations. One female was seen only once and then disappeared. She is simply referred to as the "D female".

Delia in Octber 1973 (photo)

It was not until 1974 that I had some idea of who belonged to the family. It looked like this:

Dorothy Large adult F

3-4 year old calf ?

6-7 year old female calf F

Adolescent male around 10 M

Dinah Adult F

2 year old male calf M

Delia Adult F

Adolescent male around 12 M

Deborah Adult F

Diana Young F

Daphne Young F

"D female" Adult F

Male-around 15 M

In early 1975 Dinah gave birth to a female calf, and on March 26, 1975 I recorded the last sighting of Dorothy. There was poaching of elephants in Amboseli in the mid-70s, but I suspect Dorothy died of natural causes because she had two broken off tusks which would not have been worth killing her for. The young male in the family, who would have been about 17, also disappeared. On May 15th Delia was seen with a new calf, a male.

(The DBs are in the banner photo at the top of this newsletter. Left to right the adult females are Daisy, Deborah, Diz and Dups.)

For the remainder of this history, please go to the ATE website .

Full DA, DB, DC History


All of us at the Amboseli Trust for Elephants wish all of you joyous holidays and a very happy and peaceful New Year.

Cynthia Moss
Amboseli Trust for Elephants

For further information please go to: http://www.elephanttrust.org/

News from the Amboseli Trust for Elephants

January 2011

Dear Jan,

I'm sitting at the desk in my tent looking out on a particularly glorious Kilimanjaro with its dark blue base and snow-covered top. It's been out all morning making me happy. I never take a sight like this for granted nor the privilege of being able to work and live in Amboseli. This is the 36th year of having a camp in Ol Tukai Orok (the place of the dark palms) and the 39th year of the Amboseli Elephant Research Project.

You might well ask, don't you know enough about elephants now, but the answer is definitely no. Elephants can live to about 70 so we've only just passed the halfway mark of an elephant's lifespan. We would like to follow the entire life of individual elephants from known birth to known death. We have some years to go. Also with every year added on to the study we get exponentially more value from the data we collect.

Most important of all is our role here in trying to conserve this well-known and valuable population of elephants. So much of what we do these days is not research but rather attempts to find solutions to conservation crises and issues, such as ivory poaching and human-elephant conflict. There is simply no way we could wind up our work and leave the elephants.

The Amboseli Trust for Elephants plans to be here in Amboseli for many years to come. For this reason, my main fund-raising goal now is to build up an endowment for the Trust. If you are thinking of leaving a bequest to a charitable organization please consider ATE. You can begin a conversation by writing to info@elephanttrust.org. Betsy Swart, our Executive Director in the US, will get in touch to discuss possibilities.

With regards,

Cynthia Moss

Director
Amboseli Trust for Elephants


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Social Disruption Study

The recent extreme drought in East Africa (2008-2009), combined with poaching, killed almost 400 of the 1550 individually known and continuously tracked elephants in Amboseli, Kenya. More than half of the experienced matriarchs died - these were the leaders of their families, responsible for knowing where to find food and water, safety from threats, and how to manage social networks over a 60+ year lifespan. Families were left with less inexperienced matriarchs, reduced social cohesion and potentially poor reproductive performance.
Vicki Fishlock on her first day in Amboseli

We are very keen to study and understand: 1) how the complex, matriarchal society of elephants responds to the sudden and wholesale loss of it leaders; and 2) what the implications are for elephant conservation.

We have found an excellent post-doctoral scientist to carry out this important work. Dr Vicki Fishlock, who studied forest elephants in the Republic of Congo for her Ph.D., joined ATE in January 2011. She aims to collect detailed data on 12 families examining how interactions with and between families have changed pre- and post- matriarch death. This project will be carried out in collaboration with the International Fund of Animal Welfare, Inc. a long-time partner of ATE.

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Patrick Papatiti: Super Scout - Harvey Croze

It was clear from Patrick Papatit's first few months with us in 2007 that he was a rather special young man. We were training him as part of the group of warriors from the surrounding Maasai community to be Elephant Scouts: eyes and ears, and early warning of human-elephant conflict in the ecosystem. The scout program not only provides good information of presence of elephants outside of Amboseli National Park, but it engenders goodwill in the community and a strong sense of pride and achievement among the otherwise unemployed young men.
Patrick with GPS and datasheet recording elephant dung

Anyway, Patrick, like many of his contemporaries had never finished school -- his parents just couldn't afford it. Despite that, his canniness and his self-taught literary skills allowed him to become quickly adept at operating a Garmin GPS and record elephant sightings or piles of dung (see image) onto our datasheets.

He also displayed impressive insight and determination when, after a few months of scouting, he realised that he had to go back to school. And so he did, at 27 years old towering above his classmates, he doggedly attended class and finished first in his class at Kajiado Secondary School.

Patrick worked for us as a Maasai Scout supervisor and then went to work for Deborah Rooney, and her wonderful BEADS -- Beads for Education, Advancement, Development and Success -- project that provides education opportunities for Maasai girls (see BEADS).

Bill & Deb Rooney, BEADS founders, with Patrick Papatiti on a visit to Amboseli in January

ATE and BEADS have pooled their modest resources to make sure that Partick's full potential can be realised and are supporting his university studies at the US International University in Nairobi. USIU is accredited by the USA-based Western Association of Schools and Colleges, and is a fine university (I should know, my son Anselm got his Masters there).

We wish Patrick every success in his studies and sincerely hope that when he finishes, he will come back to work in the ecosystem to help ensure future space for elephants and other wildlife.

Another great example of ATE reaching out to the community on behalf of the elephants.


The History of the EB Family

I first met the EBs in August 1973. I was with my colleague Harvey Croze, who helped set up the Project. At the time we were working part-time on the study based in Nairobi. On that trip we photographed several families, and among them was a female with bony shoulders who carried her head low. We found this "head-low female" again in November of that year and photographed her along with an older female who had two U-shaped tears out of her right ear. I saw these two females together several more times over the next months. It appeared that they belonged to a small family consisting of about seven members.

Echo with her radio collar in 1974

In April 1974 Harvey and I put radio-collars on three adult females in the population. At that time we did not know the population well and thus we simply chose the animals opportunistically, trying to find matriarchs from different parts of the Park to determine their movements and distribution. We decided to start in the East. We went to the Longinye Swamp and the first group we came upon happened to be the family with the "head-low" and "U-nicks right" females. We chose the oldest female, the matriarch, and Harvey shot her with a dart containing an immobilizing drug. The collar was quickly secured, some measurements taken, and then she was given an antidote which took affect very rapidly. In a few minutes she was up on her feet and in less than half an hour she was back with her family. We were fascinated to see that the family, although very frightened, would not leave the scene but rather waited about 200 meters away watching nervously. On this day we were able to get a good look at the family and note down the age structure. There were two adult females, two adolescents--a male and female, and three calves--one about two years old, another about five years old, and the third about six years old.

We hadn't yet assigned the family an alphabetical code nor had we given the females names. Because we often saw these elephants closely associated with the family that we had already assigned the code EA to, we assigned them the code EB. We named the matriarch with the radio collar "Echo" because of the sounds her collar was making, and the second female "Emily". Echo was the female with the two U-shaped nicks, and Emily was the "head-low female".

To read the full history of the EB family on our website, click here.


Become an Elephant Sustainer - Harvey Croze

If you feel strongly about the future of elephants, particularly our very special population in Amboseli and the work ATE is doing to understand and protect them, why not consider becoming an Amboseli Elephant Sustainer?

If just the 1,000-plus readers of our newsletter would donate a few dollars (pick your currency) a week -- the price of a couple of cappuccinos -- it would meet our core operating costs.

A good number of Elephant Sustainers making small but steady weekly contributions via their credit or debit card would enable ATE to plan more effectively around long-term costs such as the work of our dynamic Maasai women field team.

For over three decades, Cynthia has been travelling to the USA to make or renew contact with a small but loyal group of individual and foundation donors to raise enough cash to keep our elephant conservation and research work going. Our 'regulars' still provide terrific encouragement and support, but this year, due to the financial crisis, we are in a serious cash situation.

We have had to make significant cutbacks in our vital outreach to the Maasai community -- bursaries for school girls, scholarships for promising young university candidates, consolation for loss or injury from human-elephant encounters -- just to be able to pay salaries of the field team and fuel for the field vehicles.

We need to be more efficient and effective in our fund-raising, and help Cynthia to spend less time on the road and more time overseeing the vital work here in Amboseli: securing corridors for elephant in the ecosystem, maintaining the projects uniquely strong science base, and adding her influential advocacy voice to international campaigns for elephants and ecosystems.

A very small donation of $3 to $10 per week from 1,000 Amboseli Elephant Sustainers would enable our conservation and research to continue uninterrupted without fear of a cash crisis. The Sustainers would be actively participating "to ensure the long-term conservation and welfare of Africa's elephants in the context of human needs and pressures through scientific research, training, community outreach, public awareness and advocacy" (our mission).

Echo with her last calf and grandkids: their future is in our hands

A sustaining donation is very easy to set up. Click on the 'Become a Sustainer' button in the left sidebar. That will take you to our Click&Pledge page. The minimum amount you can enter is US$ 40. But if you want, for example, to donate $5 per week, click on 'Make my payment recurring' and select every '2 Months'. If you want to sacrifice two cappuccinos a week, you could select '1 Month'. Whatever you decide.

We've seen over the years that donating is an act of hope and of trust. The trustees and staff of ATE feel a weighty sense of responsibility to be the stewards of such hope on behalf of the elephants. Our team is deeply committed to respecting the trust you place in us. We in turn hope that you will help us sustain the Amboseli elephants now and into the future -- a future we are now measuring in the lifespan of the calves that will be born tomorrow.


I just want to second what Harvey has proposed--please become an Elephant Sustainer. It's a great way to start the year.

Cynthia Moss
Amboseli Trust for Elephants

The Amboseli Trust for Elephants aims to ensure the long-term conservation and welfare of Africa's elephants in the context of human needs and pressures through scientific research, training, community outreach, public awareness and advocacy.

email from: info@elephanttrust.org |

Amboseli Trust for Elephants | 10 State Street | Newburyport | MA | 01950