by Fraizer Wasonga

Local Intern

In the history of Samburu/ Buffalo Springs National Reserves, all the elephants are grouped and named in accordance to their respective families for easy identification and monitoring. Many people visiting these Reserves to observe and learn about elephants are always curious to know every animal in a given family unit by the name. At any moment you call a given elephant by name, they would always imagine about the origin and meaning of it.

For example, name like Bonsai - one would imagine of some ancient Chinese art of producing trees or plants. The word ‘bonsai’ is made up of two root words, ‘bon’ meaning tray and ‘sai’ which mean plant. Thus, a layman translation is ‘plant in a tray’. In fact, this is a Japanese version of the original Chinese word ‘pun-sai’, which means the ancient art of producing miniaturized beautiful trees and plants.

In Kenya and in fact in the Wildlife society of Samburu/Buffalo Springs Reserve; the word Bonsai is not an art, but an identity of one of majestic animal of all the species. She is a mature female elephants belonging to the family of unit know as Hardwoods. This family is composed of about six other identified females namely: Oak, Hazel, Rosewood, Cedar, Coconut, Redwood and their calves.

Bonsai was born in 1987 and being a migrant species, she has the ID M26. To date, she has survived with her three calves, two of which are males. In March, 2011 Bonsai was re-collared after it was discovered that her original collar eased to work. She was fitted with AWT GSM 3 collar that helps in understanding her movement patterns and locations. This also help    establishing human-elephant conflict areas and thus, finding long-term solutions.