Guardian Nature School Team Contact Blog Project Noah Facebook Project Noah Twitter

A worldwide community photographing and learning about wildlife

Join Project Noah!
nature school apple icon

Project Noah Nature School visit nature school

African bush elephant

Loxodonta africana

Habitat:

Ambosili game reserve

Species ID Suggestions



Sign in to suggest organism ID

9 Comments

galewhale..Gale
galewhale..Gale 13 years ago

Thanks... that is so good to hear

AmyPietras
AmyPietras 13 years ago

Thanks for sharing

mattsilvia7
mattsilvia7 13 years ago

The population is healthy, and as I understand it, monitored for disease by the kenyan wildlife service rangers. We didn't get close enough to see much more than is in the photo, but there were no obvious signs of mourning elephants. There were many in the area though... hundreds by my estimate, so we may simply have been a few days too late to see that behavior.

mattsilvia7
mattsilvia7 13 years ago

The population is healthy, and as I understand it, monitored for disease by the kenyan wildlife service rangers. We didn't get close enough to see much more than is in the photo, but there were no obvious signs of mourning elephants. There were many in the area though... hundreds by my estimate, so we may simply have been a few days too late to see that behavior.

galewhale..Gale
galewhale..Gale 13 years ago

Any idea what happened? Any sign that other elephants had found it? Another legend being that they will sometimes gather around a dead one if it was part of their group.

Is this population doing o.k.?

Navjot Hundal
Navjot Hundal 13 years ago

sad

mattsilvia7
mattsilvia7 13 years ago

As an additional positive note, about an hour later, I saw a group of elephants with some young, so.... the circle of life goes on.

mattsilvia7
mattsilvia7 13 years ago

It is, and contrary to legend, it obviously had not found it's way to some hidden elephant graveyard. On the plus side, it had most likely died of natural causes... the presence of tusks makes it unlikely that it was the work of poachers.

As our guide pointed out, the carcass would most likely go undisturbed for several days.. Until it started to stink of decomposing flesh, no hyena would dare take the chance it was only sleeping.

AmyPietras
AmyPietras 13 years ago

Is it dead?

mattsilvia7
Spotted by
mattsilvia7

Rift Valley, Kenya

Spotted on Dec 10, 2005
Submitted on Apr 19, 2011

Related Spottings

Elephant Elephant African bush elephant African Elephant

Nearby Spottings

African fish eagle Unstriped ground squirrel Oryx - Beisa Oryx - Swahili Choroa Plains Zebra
Noah Guardians
Noah Sponsors
join Project Noah Team

Join the Project Noah Team