Vicky's Christmas Collar

Vicky, an adult female of the VA family, was given a satellite collar on 20 December. The main purpose is to measure and map the crucial corridors that elephants use in their frequent movements out of the sanctuary of Amboseli National Park to the surrounding ecosystem.

The flawless post-dawn operation was part of the implementation of CBOSS, a system for collecting information on elephant presence throughout the Amboseli ecosystem.

The images above (captured by Robert Ntawuasa, who also skillfully drove the vehicle to keep the rest of the VAs at bay when Vicky first went down) show the sequence. KWS vet Joel Nwamwea takes aim with the dart gun with Martyn Colbeck filming for Animal Planet. Vicky starts as the dart hits her hind leg (red circle). She goes to sleep 9 minutes later.

The team at work on Vicky

Once the rest of the VAs were a safe distance, the team swept in, each member getting to work. Left to right: Martyn films; the vet checks Vicky’s trunk tip to make sure she’s breathing OK; Soila and Katito measure her foot circumference; Norah records the measurement; KWS rangers help Harvey lay out the collar.

We wondered if she was dreaming about when she was darted eleven years ago and given a collar, which has been ‘off the air’ for a decade. The new satellite GPS collar has been built for us by Henrik Rasmussen, a biologist who has been working with Save the Elephants for a number of years.

Josphat, Saruni & collars

Josphat and Saruni the day before in camp give us an idea of the size of the male (left) and female (right) collars, 10 and 9 kilos (22-20 lbs) respectively. The male one is being kept ready for the next darting for a veterinary intervention. Henrik is getting more collars ready.

The second most anxious part of a darting exercise is waiting for the elephant to get up again. Usually the antagonist to the powerful morphine derivative, once it’s injected into an ear vein, takes only 2-3 minutes to work. This time we waited five minutes for Vicky to stir: on cold mornings, the vet explained, the circulation is a bit sluggish.

The YouTube sequence below shows Vicky getting up as we cheered. The whole operation took 35 minutes. By 9:00 she was back with her family, who, after the initial shock, were back to feeding totally unperturbed.

The data are already interesting. Have a look at this map. It shows several things. Great Aunt Virginia’s 1977 wanderings are shown as little yellow elephant icons, fifty records in all, collected from flying and driving around the ecosystem, with a VHF receiver and a yagi antenna. Then came Vicky’s turn. She was only recorded 36 times from 1996 to 1999 (dark red icons), given the unreliability of the old technology. But even so, we learned that the VA family ranges over some 2,000 km² (nearly 800 mi²), an area six times bigger than the national park.

VA family movements

And already over the 2007-08 Christmas and New Year period, Vicky has been logged more than 150 times (once every two hours): see the bright red elephants. We can download her track history and instantaneous position from the Internet. In just under two weeks, Vicky and the VAs had gone in and out of the park seven times, usually exiting in the evening to feed in the southern woodlands and returning to the swamps during the day.

As we compile more such specific movement and use data, we shall build a strong case for how important it is to set aside elephant corridors and easements outside the park in an ecosystem that is already being severely challenged by uncontrolled development.

We want to record a heartfelt vote of thanks to several donors who are supporting ATE's effort to expand its data collection and strengthen its information base for negotiating living space for the Amboseli elephants, in particular, the National Geographic Society, IFAW, Born Free and wildlife artist Angela Chidgey. Thanks to you all, and watch this space.