Sarara at STE’s research center in Samburu National Reserve © Jane Wynyard/Save the Elephants Our hearts are heavy at the deaths of Sarara and Yeager. For those of us living in Save the Elephants’ Samburu research camp, the loss is even harder. For decades, both curious and loveable elephants were part of our herd in Samburu, northern Kenya. ...

I was fortunate to be part of the Save the Elephants team that attended CITES (the Convention on International Trade of Endangered Species of Fauna and Flora) in Panama City in November 2022.  It was incredible to see all the different representatives from around the globe gathered in one place to discuss important wildlife matters. Our team comprised Dr. Lucy King (Head of Human-Elephant Coexistence Program), Dr. Chris Thouless (Director of Research & Elephant Crisis Fund), Dr. Festus ...

We are deeply saddened to announce the death of Sarara, one of the most beloved and famous resident bull elephants in Samburu National Reserve, northern Kenya. The carcass of the 32-year-old wild bull, who was in the prime of his life, was discovered to the south of Buffalo Springs National Reserve. His tusks were intact and recovered by the Kenya Wildlife Service, and we suspect that he was the victim of conflict in an area known as the Attan Swamp. Conflict between humans and elephants ...

Above: Wildlife and livestock corridor in northern Kenya demarcated by pillars. Corridors are crucial in linking wildlife conservation areas Wildlife, including elephants, are facing threats to their natural habitats as human populations expand and infrastructure development accelerates. As a result, there is increased pressure on people, wildlife and livestock to share the landscape and ...

A wild African female elephant who survived being shot five times by poachers and delighted scientists by giving birth again nine years later, has died in northern Kenya in the middle of the drought. Monsoon, the fearless matriarch of the Storms family and mother of seven calves, was sadly euthanised on September 26 after she collapsed several times in northern Kenya. She was estimated to be in her sixties. [caption id="attachment_11551" align="aligncenter" width="984"]...

The better we understand elephants, the more we can find ways to help them. Work recently published by Save the Elephants researchers gives a glimpse not only of how we are deepening our insight into the world of elephants and how this can help them, but also how studying elephants could help humans.  What happens to the bodies and minds of baby elephants when they lose their mothers? Can the elephants’ ...

A vast expanse of semi-arid land in northern Kenya - home to an estimated 7,500 elephants, may be acting as an early warning system for threatened elephant populations across Africa. Data on elephant mortality from the Samburu-Laikipia MIKE (Monitoring of Illegal Killing of Elephants) programme site was first used by Save the Elephants in 2009 to alert the world to escalating levels of poaching across the ...

Celebrating 20 years of the Elephant Scholarship Fund When the Elephant Scholarship programme began in 2001, little did we realise how impactful it would become. Today more than 200 students have had their lives transformed from the scholarships, with many now working in wildlife conservation, education, medicine, finance, and engineering. Oria Douglas-Hamilton was inspired to start the fund while setting ...

These past few months have been tough for people and wildlife alike as Kenya continues to grapple with the effects of yet another prolonged drought that has ravaged parts of the country.  In northern Kenya, where our research camp is based, the wild animals are scrambling for food in a landscape that resembles a desert wasteland. Most of the grass has been eaten by hungry livestock that have invaded protected ...

Former STE intern, Meha Kumar, shares one of her special encounters with elephants in Samburu National Reserve and gives us a glimpse into some of the discoveries she made during her internship. There they were, the Hardwoods family, a group of 43 elephants in the shallow waters of the Ewaso Nyiro river, cooling off, mucking around in the mud and drinking. [caption id="attachment_11194" align="aligncenter" width="984"]...

Our founder, Iain Douglas-Hamilton (pictured above), recently had a ‘Rip Van Winkle’ moment when he came back after forty years’ absence to a very changed world in the northern Uganda elephant range. In 2021, the Northern Rangelands Trust (NRT), working with community conservancies in West Pokot, received reports of elephant movement between Uganda and Kenya. It had been rumoured that elephants from Uganda’s Kidepo National Park migrated into parts of Sudan and Kenya, but no ...

A massive, adult collared elephant bull named Puran has amazed our researchers by blazing a trail across a vast desert landscape in remote northern Kenya, showing once again how elephants are expanding their range northwards into areas from which they haven’t been seen in decades.  For a whole year prior, Puran had barely left his favourite stomping ground of South Horr valley, where he’d made unremarkable journeys up and down the slopes of the ...

Have you  heard the famous quote by Thomas Schmidt, “No one in the world needs an elephant tusk but an elephant?”   Here’s why! Elephant tusks are enormous front teeth that keep growing throughout an elephant’s life. Apart from lifting things and being a tool for defense, elephants use their tusks to strip the bark off trees, enabling other smaller wildlife to ...

Former STE intern, Meha Kumar, joined our education team during their conservation education lessons across schools in northern Kenya. Here she shares her experiences. There’s an African proverb that goes “If you educate a man, you educate an individual. But if you educate a woman, you educate a nation.”   Save the Elephants (STE) not only works to secure a ...

Image: Great tusker, Wide Satao (centre), with other bulls in Tsavo East National Park © Christine Mwende / Tsavo Trust Last December, Kenya lost an iconic great tusker called Wide Satao. Wide Satao died of natural causes that were most likely accelerated by the extended drought that ravaged through the Tsavo ecosystem last year. Wide Satao’s death was felt by many including Save the Elephant’s Research and Science...