Fantastic Amboseli Visit

Earlier this summer I got to make a second visit to my favorite place in the world: Amboseli National Park. On several drives I was thrilled to get to go out with Cynthia Moss, Norah Njiraini, and Katito Sayialel (I was sad to miss Soila for the second time), the best guides an aspiring elephant researcher like myself could ask for.

I hadn't seen an elephant since I was last in Amboseli in 2005, and of course I'm still in awe of the animals I've loved my whole life. I was especially happy to see the little elephant I named, Elana, grown into a beautiful calf of four and a half years. Unlike my last trip, when her great-grandmother Echo and family didn't show up until the day before I left, I got to spend a lot of time with the EBs. The family is big and thriving and very well fed thanks to Echo, the only matriarch who leads her family over the broken-down fence to feed on the trees in Ol Tukai every night. There is real concern for the rest of the Amboseli families with coming drought conditions, but it's good to know that at least the EBs will still have a good food supply.

I had many unforgettable experiences riding along with Norah as she did censuses. One day we were chased by musth bulls Buster and Macaroon at the end of a fight. (We were grateful when they decided to veer in another direction as we struggled to flee over the rough terrain.) Another time we were with Orabel’s OA2s on the edge of the Longinye Swamp. Orabel’s 16-year-old daughter OmoR. walked right up to my window and stood looking in at me, so close I could have reached out and grabbed her tusk. I had never been so close to an elephant before, and looking her in the eye was yet another reminder of why I hope to spend my life learning about and helping these animals.

Winnie Kiiru was also in Amboseli working on her Ph.D. project on human-elephant conflict while I was there, and it was very eye-opening to see “the other side” on a visit to the farms near Loitokitok. Of the 58 elephant families in Amboseli, well under half are actually found within the park boundaries most of the time. The others travel around the larger ecosystem, where they are faced with increasing amounts of land developed for agriculture. As an elephant enthusiast, my first instinct has always been to feel that the farmers were simply intruding on land that should be for wildlife. Seeing the life of the farmers firsthand, though, increased my awareness of the complexity of this problem. The needs of the people need to be balanced with the necessity of conserving habitat for wildlife. There are obviously no easy answers, and this is why the work of people like Winnie needs to continue to find ways to secure important wildlife corridors by controlling the spread of agriculture without taking away the livelihoods of the local people.

I found it difficult to leave Amboseli, a feeling I’m sure many visitors share. Luckily I brought some fantastic elephant memories home with me, which will have to last until I make my (hopefully soon) next visit.