Crickets sing, a hyena calls out into the night, and dogs yap nervously in response. Then they hear it: a low grumble. It is what the Big Life rangers stationed along the electric fence have been straining their ears for. It’s 9 PM and they have been patrolling a fence section that in the past few months has been visited almost nightly by groups of bull elephants with one thing on their minds: crops.

“This used to be their highway to Tsavo,” explains Mayani, the Mobile Unit 2 Driver. But that route has changed, as human development has changed the landscape. Today, farmers have settled to grow crops on the fertile foothills of Mount Kilimanjaro. And conflict between elephants and farmers was becoming deadly.

To protect both elephants and people, a solution needed to be found. A solar-powered electric fence was constructed by Big Life in 2016 in response to the surge in conflict between elephants and the farmers. The fence line was erected where the most amount of conflict was happening, the epicentre of human-elephant conflict in Amboseli. This line helps redirect elephants to safety through the Kimana Corridor, and onwards to Chyulu and Tsavo beyond.

On this night, two Big Life ranger vehicles work to push 10 enormous bull elephants away from a crop of maize. The following morning, the Big Life fence team repaired the section of fencing that was broken by these peckish pachyderms attempting to access the crop, while another team went to inspect the damage.

Because of their intelligence, persistence, and considerable strength, it is almost impossible to prevent full-grown elephants from doing what they want, and while the fence has stopped crop raiding by more than 90% in the areas where it was built, there are a select few bull elephants who have become professional fence breakers.

Staying ahead of them has become a full on “arms race” but is increasingly important for everyone’s safety, human and elephant, as the drought rages on.

Thank you for supporting our rangers and fence program, so that we can continue to keep the peace and keep retaliation against elephants to a minimum.

Photo: Josh clay

It’s no secret that elephants are smart and negotiating with them is as much an art as a science. Careful planning and strategy are needed.

When elephants raid farms they risk the spears of angry farmers, and we use several tactics to avoid this. To start, our mobile ranger units patrol high-risk areas at high-risk times, using their vehicles to intercept elephants and direct them away from farms. At night rangers will use strobes lights and thunder flashes (firecrackers) to startle elephants back to safety.

In the areas with the highest rates of conflict, we erected a physical barrier: 100 km of solar-powered electric fencing. The design features short (3 ft) posts with long, angled outrigger wires, intended to stop elephants from climbing over or pushing through. However, the smarter bull elephants have learned how to get through, going so far as to dig up and break the buried ground wire, thereby rendering the fence ineffective.

Although these ‘fence-breaks’ are frustrating, the fence is still extremely effective and conflict has dropped by 90% along that line, saving farmer’s crops and elephant’s lives. Keeping this fence operational is a full-time job, and one we’re happy to do with your support.

There are other ways of negotiating with elephants. Their trunks and eyes are sensitive, and we’ve been testing an experimental fence made of rags infused with chili oil, that deters elephants but is not harmful. The process is time-intensive and the potency wears off quickly, but it’s an interesting alternative in the right circumstances.

Elephants also hate bees, and beehive fences have shown promising results in other parts of Africa. They are best used on smaller individual farms and are unfortunately impractical at the scale needed in our case. It would be impossible to maintain a single unbroken beehive fence (complete with occupied hives) along the 100+ km that we manage, and we know from experience how quick elephants are to exploit weaknesses.

We also know that there is no silver bullet for solving human-elephant conflict. Elephants are smart and always learning, and we try our best to do the same.

Photos: Jeremy Goss

Cows and goats huddle under the shade of a lone acacia tree, barely avoiding the unforgiving midday sun. One or two limply sip at a muddy puddle containing little more than a handful of water. Concrete blocks are strewn around them. These blocks used to cover pipes that connected a community borehole to a water trough. However, they were destroyed the night before by elephants also trying to quench their thirst by breaking into the plumbing buried beneath.

Rising fuel costs paired with worsening drought conditions have meant people are less able and less willing to pay to pump water from community boreholes to sustain their livestock, especially when elephants arrive shortly after to finish whatever remains.

But today it is a different story. The generator has just sputtered into action, and its sound is immediately acknowledged by livestock and wildlife alike, waking them from a heat-induced stupor. This borehole is in an area called Satao Elerai, and is one of the latest that Big Life is paying the fuel costs for.

As drought conditions persist, Big Life will continue to fund more than 15 boreholes across the ecosystem, ensuring people, livestock, and wildlife still have access to this precious resource. That means fuel for the generators to pump the water, attendants to monitor their condition, and repairs when elephants are destructive.

Maji ni Maisha = Water is Life

And we intend to support as much of it as we can.

Photo: Josh Clay

Big Life’s 11 female rangers create an ensemble that is a force to be reckoned with. Unlike Danny Ocean’s crew of heisters, our team is enforcing conservation laws and helping to put would-be poachers behind bars.

All 11 of these women are mothers and know that their children’s future depends on a safe and thriving ecosystem to call home.

The future of all of us and our planet depends on hardworking women like our female ranger unit. From patrolling for wildlife criminals to liaising with their local communities, Big Life’s female rangers are working for a more equitable society in a field dominated by men.

To all female rangers, as well as the dozens of women working behind the scenes at Big Life for our shared mission protecting wildlife and wild lands, happy International Women’s Day. We salute you! Photo: Josh Clay