A year ago George Wittemyer reported a new elephant and her family sighted within Buffalo Springs National Reserve, the first time this had happened in six years. George made a careful analysis of the age structure of Dorobo and the six calves, and came to the conclusion that they were the remnants of a family that must have contained at least two more breeding females.
Evidently, she had come from an area where elephants suffered high mortality. The other adults were probably killed by humans, and Dorobo may have moved her family into the reserve for refuge. She certainly appeared nervous when she encountered vehicles, but she was also seen greeting other well known elephants implying that she had already met them somewhere before. We were fascinated to find out where she came from originally.
On the 25th August 2005 we tagged her with an AWT GSM collar which sent a text message every hour that allowed us to follow her movements on the internet. She initially stayed in Buffalo Springs and just south of the border in Ngare Mara for the first two months, made one short trip to the east, but then headed out of the reserve to the south west down to Ilngwesi. We were beginning to wonder if she was originally a Laikipia elephant, but then on the 16th November 2005 she trekked back through Isiolo West and back to Buffalo Springs. Gradually she started spending more time further east and slowly moved southward towards Isiolo where she stayed within 20 km of this town for the next 5 months, with only one visit back to Buffalo Springs in late April 2006. At this time there was a terrible drought in the reserve and she was joined by other elephants like Amina, Neptune and Monsoon. It seems that the good rains around Isiolo attracted them into areas they normally don’t go. Perhaps this was Dorobo’s core range.
Sadly we will never know as on the 6th June her collar stopped moving on our computer screens. The dot representing Dorobo was stationary for 6 days and then there was a sudden jump of three kilometers. What could be going on? Had the collar dropped off and was it being carried by people, or was she dead. A team was dispatched to the area consisting of three STE research assistants, David Daballen, Chris Leadismo, and Gilbert Sabinga, two volunteers, Caroline Mullins and Rebecca Walter, and two armed Kenya Wildlife Service rangers. They drove as close to the GPS points as possible and completed their journey on foot. And there they discovered the carcass of an elephant. It was Dorobo. Not only that but she was burned to ashes. The patrols searched the area for the collar, and for bullet cartridges or any other signs of cause of death, but this was difficult in view of the burning. However, it was evident from the skull that her tusks had been pulled out after death, not hacked out showing that she had been dead for a few days before they were removed. After a thorough investigation the patrol then walked the three kilometers to the second GPS location where they found the collar lying on the ground. It had been cut in half using a sharp knife.
The area where both the carcass and collar were found is fairly remote, although a few temporary bomas and farmsteads were seen by the team. This is an unusual event and KWS are trying to get to the bottom of who killed this elephant and who carried the collar away from the ashes.
Sadly the six calves, some of whom were already orphans are unlikely to survive not without any adults to lead them. Their only hope is to join with another family, because without the knowledge and leadership of a matriarch their chance of survival is virtually zero. This actually does sometimes happen in elephant society, as has been shown by our analysis of the DNA of some families that shows that some elephants within perfectly integrated units are actually unrelated to the other members. So there is some hope for Dorobo’s calves and orphans if they can find an altruistic elephant family.