Photo gallery for Lumpy Tusks shot dead as KWS ranger injured

On 17th March, 2008, I received a phone call from senior warden Amboseli National Park thinking it was one of our routine call on park issues. I was stunned to hear that a KWS ranger was injured by an elephant when on patrol by foot. Luckily he was with his team and they shot the elephant before he was trampled when he fell down. He was rushed to Loitokitok hospital for first aid then later flown to Nairobi. The Amboseli KWS warden Mr. Bakari confirmed that the elephant was shot and killed.

Katito, Norah and I drove to the area where the elephant was shot which was about some 50kms from Amboseli, in a ranch at Inkisanjani between Amboseli National Park and Tsavo West National Park. The dead elephant was about 1/2km from the road. I was surprised to see the number of people already on site, about 200 and most of them with machetes, ready for meat. The ranch was a hideout for elephants during day time and at night they go crop raiding. We immediately identified him as Lumpy Tusks, a 43 years old male. The last time he was sighted in the park was in March 08, 2003.

In December 21, 2007 he was reported by Warden Kimana Sanctuary that he could barely walk, he was limping so badly. Lumpy Tusks was lucky since Dr. Nyamweya, a KWS vet was still around after treating another elephant. The following day we headed to the Sanctuary and found him in the woodlands, according to the vet's assessment the wound was from a spear but still fresh. He was darted and normally it takes between 10 minutes to 15 minutes for an elephant to go down. It was very abnormal, after 25 minutes he was still very strong, then he started feeding. The vet had to prepare more drugs to immobilize him, and then he went down after exactly 10 minutes. As we rushed to make sure that his trunk wasn't blocked and not restraining his breathing and the vet preparing his treatment kit, we were surprised when we noticed a very strong smell of local brew. I thought it was a ranger standing next to me and this made all of us keep it for ourselves but as we were taking measurements of the tusks the smell was even stronger and Lumpy Tusks was snoring so loud, it turned out the smell was coming from Lumpy Tusks. There is a common drink (Changga) brewed in the villages, mostly it is brewed away from homes since it is illegal but our good friend had a proper drink that night, that is why the M99 drug didn't work the first time. I still believe that he was aggressive due to the spearing and he could not tolerate any human presence at close range.