Echo at home - short video

Echo tests a strange smell

Just came back from a flying visit to Amboseli for some admin and logistic work. Went out with Cynthia yesterday morning to try her new little hand-held Panasonic DVD recorder on Echo and the EBs. You can see the video below. The family is looking plump and healthy, despite the prolonged drought (Amboseli has only had half the annual rainfall so far!): it pays to have a wise old matriarch to maximise your survival chances.

Keywords: wildlife

Here's what we said on the YouTube blurb: World-famous Echo and her 'EB' family have been the subject of three BBC TV films. The EBs are the best-known of the 53 families that have been studied for nearly 40 years by the Amboseli Elephant Research Project in Kenya, led by Cynthia Moss. Here we see a progression of 16 elephants, half the family, (Eudora, Echo's niece will catch up with them later). Echo, as usual, brings up the rear to keep an oversight of where the group is going and watch for stragglers and danger. She pauses towards the end and checks out a smell on the ground, perhaps urine from a member of the VA family, who often conflict with the EBs over scarce dry-season fodder.