Our boots are always on the ground, and our eyes always on the horizon, but today we’re specifically looking for rain. As I write this, the land is parched. Dust fills the air and coats every surface.

What a difference a year makes. By this time last year, we’d already seen more than 300 mm of water (more than a foot), flooding the ecosystem, which came with a different set of challenges the dryness is now causing. Water tanks have been damaged. We’ve had to repair three boreholes damaged by elephants looking for water. To mitigate conflict between wildlife and the community, we’ve provided 1,201 litres of fuel for pumping water.  At the end of the day, there needs to be some water left in the tanks for whoever, or whatever, needs a drink.

Normally we see an increase in crop-raiding and bushmeat poaching in the dry season but so far, the programs we’ve put in place are doing what they’re supposed to do: reduce incidents. Crop-raiding is on track with what we saw last year despite the lack of rain. Our fence project is extending and continuing to yield positive results.

Our intelligence work and network is also continuing to yield remarkable results. So far this year, 238 kg of ivory has been taken out of the illegal market thanks to close collaboration between Big Life’s network and the Kenya Wildlife Service. We’re continuing to grow this side of Big Life’s operations, which we’ll update you on more soon.

In the meantime, we pray for rain. It’s hard to reflect on the extreme fluctuations in weather and not see how human development has lead to the inconsistent weather patterns now complicating all of our lives, human and animal alike, around the world.

As always, thank you for your support.

Richard Bonham
Director of Operations, Big Life Kenya

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Elephants have faces, and these days, even dead elephants in the Amboseli ecosystem do. This might sound like a strange statement, but when Big Life was established in 2010, most elephants were dying at the hands of poachers. Since 1/3 of the ivory is embedded in their skulls, the elephant’s faces were mutilated to get at the tusks. When we found them, it was a horrific and gory scene.

Fast forward to 2019. Poaching has been largely brought under control in Big Life Foundation’s Area of Operation due to the hard work of our community rangers.

But some elephants still perish. Why? The elephant pictured here isn’t dead because of its ivory, but because it unknowingly crossed the line into a human space. Big Life rangers found the elephant after following lion tracks; the young adult male had been dead only hours, killed the night before. The injury was seemingly too small to have felled an animal of this size: a neat cut only inches long where a spear had entered and caused deadly internal damage.

Given the location of the elephant’s body, we are almost certain that his death was caused by a spear thrown by a farmer. Another case of an understandably angry human trying to defend their property and source of income against raiding elephants.

We’ve talked for a while about evolving challenges in Amboseli and how our greatest task now is to facilitate co-existence between man and animal, and ensure that there is space for all. An important step towards this is keeping elephants out of farms, and the electric crop-protection fences that Big Life is constructing are doing a remarkably good job of that. With 75km (47 miles) constructed we’ve made great progress, and each day the fence line extends further.

Furthermore, we are seeing an impact, despite the tragic loss of this elephant. From a high of 12 conflict-related elephant deaths in 2016, before we started constructing the fence, last year we recorded only 2. There are a lot of factors at play here and no silver bullet, but we know that our work is saving human and elephant lives.

Thanks to all those who support us -- you are the reason that sad stories like this are increasingly rare. For those interested in making a real difference to conservation in Africa, please consider a donation on our website.

Once upon a time, a ranger’s job was simple: catch the poachers. That was the case when most of Big Life’s rangers started out, and for some that was more than two decades ago. And although the goal of protecting wildlife hasn’t changed, the times certainly have.

Modern rangers need to be as comfortable reading a GPS as they are at reading tracks in the sand. They need to work with people as much as animals, mitigating human-wildlife conflicts, and working with community intelligence networks to solve crimes.

So while some of the veteran rangers have seen it all, there is always more to learn. That’s why Big Life worked with the association that represents community rangers in Amboseli (and thanks to generous support from Thin Green Line, generous private donors, and IFAW) to create the Amboseli Conservation Academy, a local training facility that provides refresher training to community rangers, intended to build on the solid and reliable foundation provided by the Kenya Wildlife Service Manyani training camp.

It’s been almost a year since construction of the Academy was completed, and since then 225 rangers have completed basic refresher training courses, including two courses for non-commissioned officers. One final 3-week course remains, following which all Big Life rangers will have undergone the first basic refresher. A series of more intensive 6-week training courses will begin thereafter.

Almost without exception, every ranger has enthusiastically embraced the opportunity to learn more, even if that meant going ‘back to school’ with the rigorous demands of boot camp. The result has been a fine-tuning of the bush experience that so many of these rangers have, and a ranger force that is ready for whatever the job can throw at them.

It’s the first rule of the bush: don’t mess with an angry elephant mother.

The herders who found her were wise to keep their distance, but got just close enough to see what was causing her distress. It was her calf, stuck in the mud on the edge of a seasonal lake, and she was unable to pull the baby elephant out.

This happens from time to time, when a youngster pushes the boundaries too far, not having the experience to know how dangerous a situation can be. The herders called Big Life, and we immediately sent our Super Cub aircraft to get a better sense of the scene.

A rescue was possible, but the mother would be problematic. She would have no idea that we were trying to help, and would not tolerate anyone approaching her calf. As we so often do, we called on the Sheldrick Wildlife Trust helicopter, hoping that it could be used to chase her off for long enough to rescue her calf from the mud.

While the rangers waited for the chopper, some decided to take a chance, slowly approaching the mother to see how she would react. They got closer, pushing her gently away. Eventually, she was far away enough to give them a gap. The rangers waded into the mud, and working with local community members, managed to wrestle the calf back onto solid footing.

It was a tiny thing, maybe six-months-old, which they guided back toward the mother. As they got closer the mother seemed to realize what was happening and came forward, and the calf ran the small distance remaining between them, reunited at last.

Together, they moved back into the bush, the rangers and community members went about their business, and a potentially deadly crisis was averted. The next day, rangers tracked the mother and calf and found them reunited with their small family group, relaxed and browsing contentedly.

This is an example of why Big Life’s conservation model works so well. We are an integral part of the local community, and the herders wasted no time in calling. We have the resources to react immediately. And the result is what we all love: a happy ending.