COLLARED BULL ELEPHANT FOLLOWS ANCIENT MIGRATION ROUTE INTO SOMALIA
(Posted 10th March 2016)
News from Kenya tell an incredible story of a collared bull elephant named Morgan, who had embarked on a journey into the great unknown when he followed ancient migration routes from Kenya’s coastal forests towards Somalia.
Tracking data now published in Nairobi allowed researchers to follow the elephant’s movements on a daily basis, whenever data were transmitted. From the Tana River in Kenya did the route take the elephant bull towards the Somali border for nearly three weeks, covering over 200 kilometres. When finding no fellow elephants, researchers believe Morgan was looking for females to mate with, the bull then turned on his heels and returned to Kenya, after spending just a day in Somalia, some three kilometres across the border according to research tracking data.
Across much of Africa but especially in Eastern Africa where an explosive human population growth over the past several decades led to such ancient migration routes taken over by humans in search of farmland and land to live on, have elephant populations been hemmed in, no longer able to follow the old routes. Gene pool variety as a result is beginning to suffer as routes from as far as Ethiopia via Marsabit, into the central Kenyan highlands, through the Aberdares and into the Rift Valley are now no longer available as the trails are no criss crossed by roads and have been fenced off for agriculture and ranching.
Morgan’s journey therefore is not just extraordinarily special in terms of the route he took but also serves as a reminder what human activity over the past decades has by and large now made impossible for Africa’s remaining elephant – to migrate and follow patterns imprinted in their minds for dozens of generations. It is clearly a heavy price animal populations are now paying and no doubt will elephant conservationists and activists use this example to lobby and advocate towards keeping key migration routes open to ensure the long term survival of the species – including the massive benefits of wildlife based tourism.
Kenya’s coastal districts are dotted with several smaller national parks, game and forest reserves where elephant thrived in the past, some even seen as late as the mid 1980’s by this correspondent reaching the ocean shores. Numbers however were decimated by poaching and a loss of natural habitat and elephant are now only seen regularly at the Shimba Hills National Park, which is less than an hour’s drive from the famous Diani beaches. Other sightings, especially along the border areas with Somalia, have become rare and estimates speak of only a few hundred remaining elephant compared to thousands still seen in the 1980’s and into the early 1990’s.
More information about Kenya’s nationalparks can be found via www.kws.go.ke
