Sending two 12,000-pound elephants on a road trip is a huge job, particularly when they haven’t volunteered for the journey.

But in this case, we had tried everything else when it came to an elephant you might have heard us mention before: Fence-breaker 6 (FB6). His name is unremarkable, but he is anything but.

Big Life’s rangers have been keeping FB6 out of trouble for years. In 2018, we built 100km of electric fencing to prevent elephants from raiding farms. It’s been a great success, and conflict in that area dropped by 90%.  But FB6 and some other males have learned ways to break through.

Due to his chronic fence-breaking and crop-raiding behavior, FB6 was fitted with a tracking collar several years ago, and then again this summer when it needed to be replaced. This allowed rangers to intercept him. Night after night, he would be turned away only to sneak in elsewhere. Despite our best efforts, FB6 was proving to be unstoppable.

With community tempers rising, the Kenya Wildlife Service decided to stage a more dramatic intervention and translocate FB6 and one of his unnamed associates. In an extremely professional operation, the two elephants were darted by a KWS vet from a Sheldrick Wildlife Trust helicopter. They were first loaded onto a smaller flat-bed truck, which delivered them to a much bigger truck and trailer near the main road. They were then transported to Tsavo East National Park, far from Amboseli’s farms where they will hopefully stay out of trouble. Time will only tell if that’s to be the case.

Translocation is an extreme step in keeping the peace between animals and people, but occasionally a necessary one, and thankfully rare.  Individuals like FB6 can do immense damage to human tolerance for his entire species. Translocation is a last resort, but we are continually working to come up with effective long-term methods to mitigate conflict. From fencing to deterrence to physically chasing elephants out of farms, keeping the peace is all hands-on deck.

We wish FB6 well and hope that he settles quickly into his new home in Tsavo!

Thanks to our partners for the successful operation.

📸: Augustino