– Morgan’s long march north –
In some parts of Africa elephants are being killed quicker than they reproduce, but Kenya has seen recent successes with the number of elephants poached in 2015 falling to 93 from 164 the previous year.
In the early 1970s it is estimated there were as many as 20,000 elephants in Kenya’s coastal area, but that number has fallen to 300 at most today.
Some credit a Kenyan security operation in the area with suppressing poaching.
“We’re seeing more elephants now,” said Charles Omondi, a commander in the Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) which is patrolling the Lamu area alongside Kenyan soldiers and police deployed to defend against regular deadly attacks by Islamic militants.
There have been no confirmed sightings of elephants in Somalia in two decades, since soon after the start of a civil war that has continued in different forms ever since.
Despite the time that has elapsed, Morgan appeared to have remembered the old migration routes.
“A mature bull like Morgan is not wandering aimlessly. He’s likely following a route that he learnt earlier in his life, one that has been used by elephants for generations,” said Ian Craig, conservation director at the Northern Rangelands Trust, a Kenya-based conservation group that establishes reserves across the country, including in the area where Morgan lives.
In the end, after walking 220 kilometres (137 miles) Morgan spent just less than 24-hours actually in Somalia – and only went three kilometres over the border – before turning back, presumably after failing to find any willing females with whom to mate.
But the fact of his journey is what excites the conservationists.
“Out of all the tracking we’ve done in Africa, these movements – and these circumstances – are exceptional,” said Douglas-Hamilton. “The wandering of this one bull across the entire expanse of Lamu district, from the Tana River to the Somali border, no-one has seen anything like this before.”
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