Kylie Butler
International Intern

Today I was lucky enough to accompany David and Jeronimo on their collaring mission, and see exactly what is involved in putting a collar on one of these great mammals. It is by no means an easy task, logistically or otherwise. To begin with, the day of collaring has to coincide with the availability of KWS vet, Dr. Mutinda, the sole wildlife vet for the entire north Kenyan region – as one can imagine his time resources are quite stretched. Then, the specific elephant must be located, and the location must be an area accessible by vehicles, where the elephant can be successfully separated from its family, is hopefully relatively restful to make accuracy of darting easier, and preferably found before the day becomes too hot. Not asking too much?

The African magic must have been smiling down on us today because it was a textbook operation. David and I set out around 7am in search of Bonzai from the Hardwoods family. Bonzai had actually been collared around a year ago however the collar had ceased functioning. Resilience, another of our collared elephants, had recently passed away, the unfortunate and devastating result of bullet wounds from a poaching attempt. The plan was to replace Bonzai’s original collar, with the one Resilience had been wearing. Earlier in the week, the Hardwoods had been seen on the Buffalo Springs side of the river so we began our search there, joined after an hour or so by Jeronimo, in a second research vehicle, and Dr. Mutinda. At around 9am, Jeronimo radioed through to say he’d spotted Bonzai at Mahogany Point. After the dart was prepared for immobilization, we met Jeronimo at the location, where Bonzai was calmly hanging about with her family. Dr. Mutinda fired the dart, targeting Bonzai’s ample rump and within ten minutes she was down in the shade of a lovely tree. Her 18 fellow family members, including her calves, were successfully maneuvered away, so they would not see her fall lest they became protective. David and Jeronimo skillfully tied a rope to one of her tusks and the car and pulled Bonzai into the optimal position lying on her side, to ensure her blood flow and breathing would not be restricted.

Bonzai going down after the darting

In less than 20 minutes, David and Jeronimo had replaced Bonzai’s broken collar with Resilience’s collar. We poured some water over her ears and body to keep her temperature cool, and Dr. Mutinda injected her with the antidote. Within two minutes she was standing again, looking slightly disoriented and glassy-eyed at first, before heading off in the direction her family had moved.

David and Jerenimo changing the collar

Today showed that collaring is a big and stressful operation, requiring careful planning and a little luck. However the benefits of information gained about elephant movement patterns and locations is more than worth it. Particularly with the very real threats of poaching and other human-elephant conflict rife, the value of knowing where and when elephants are traveling cannot be underestimated in furthering our understanding of why elephants do the things they do, and helping protect this most majestic of species.