Last month, June of 2021, was the Tsavo Trust’s busiest flying month of this year by quite some distance. In total, our pilots flew a combined 13,364km and spent 107 hours in the air. As per usual, they flew for aerial reconnaissance missions, aiding ground teams in surveying the Tsavo Conservation Area, and looked out for signs of poaching.
But a huge part of what made last month’s flying operations into such a mammoth undertaking is that our pilots also helped in what was our latest collaring mission.
Elephant conservation Kenya: – Refitting tracking collars
At the tail end of last month, the Trust’s aircraft and ground teams were put to work in trying to update the network of collars we have on the area’s elephant. Tracking collars are essential for following certain individuals. But they are also key in helping us better understand the habits of these huge migratory animals.
They are, therefore, an essential tool in the elephant conservationist’s arsenal.
As useful as they are, however, fitting and maintaining the working order of a transmitting collar placed on the planet’s largest land mammal can be difficult. It requires experience in interacting with elephant, a great deal of skill and a lot of patience.
Over the course of 23 flight-time hours, across a 4 day span, our team managed to track down, dart and re-collar 10 of the elephant we are especially keen to keep tabs on.
Day 1 (21/06/21) – On the first day of our collaring push, our teams focussed on the Tsavo East National Park. It was a very successful operating day and we found many of the elephant we would have expected to find in this region of the TCA. We also managed to refit a collar to one of the Big Tuskers who we are particularly interested in monitoring.
If the genes necessary for Tsavo’s elephant to produce Big Tuskers are to be preserved beyond this present generation of elephant, those presently extant must be protected. We monitor many individuals of this genetic profile and try to fit collars to them if it can be done safely.
With our pilots following the transmitted signal from the old collars, we traced down Sala, Ndara, Maungu and Wide Satao (the Big Tusker) and managed to refit each of them with new collars.
We also spent a significant amount of our time in trying to track down one of our growing, and troublesome, young bulls. Despite his youth, Mvoi is growing rapidly. We monitor elephants such as Mvoi, not a Big Tusker, in order that we can both keep tabs on him and better understand elephant behaviour. Unfortunately, in the case of Mvoi, a previously fitted collar that had been placed on him when he was younger had run out of battery.
There were fears that, because Mvoi is still growing, the old and now dead collar might soon start to restrict his movement. Fortunately, our aerial teams were able to locate him without the help of the transmitting collar. It was decided that the collar should be removed because of the young male’s rate of growth. We hope someday to find him again, when he’s stopped growing, and we’ll fit him with a collar that’ll last him for a longer span of time.
Day 2 (22/06/21) – On day 2, we focussed our operations on the Sala, Emusaya and Garasamuke areas and we managed to re-collar Balachu and Dakota.
Day 3 (23/06/21) – We focussed on the Tita ranches and Lake Jipe areas and managed to re-collar Jojoba, Manolo and EQ.
Day 4 (24/06/21) – On the fourth day, we put our efforts into finding some of the elephant we particularly want to keep tabs on and did broader surveys of the TCA to do so. We were looking, in particular, for Murka, Jenga, Solio and Manyani.
We managed to find Jenga and refit his collar but the other three evaded us this time. We’ll continue to keep an eye out, as we always do, for the area’s elephant. They are, after all, our wards here in the Tsavo Conservation Area.
How you can help
We at the Trust will continue to look out for the elephant individuals at greatest risk of poaching. Conserving the African elephant is an ongoing mission and it wouldn’t have seen the successes it has were it not for generous donations from readers such as yourself. What’s more, despite those successes, Africa’s elephant are still at constant risk as a result of human activity.
This operation to refit collars on elephant in the TCA was a Save The Elephants spearheaded mission. We were very happy to play the part that we did in it but a huge thank you is due the team over at STE for their continued good work in protecting the African elephant.
Charities such as ours and Save The Elephant rely on the continued stakeholding of peoples like yourselves. Without a conscientious general public, our single issue not-for-profit organisations would struggle.
By educating yourself on the subject – as you have just done in reading this article – you increase our species know-how as would-be elephant conservationists. If you’d like to have a more direct impact on the Trust’s ability to conserve the African elephant and its habitat, you can follow this link to our donations page.