“Elephants too have their personalities. We know who is not a good mother and who is.”
“The JB family split because Gail was not getting along with Goda. Women have issues and the two seemed to have their own issues which caused the family to split,” Norah explained.
Norah’s passion and love for elephants started in 1985.
She joined Amboseli Elephant Research Project as a training coordinator.
For the last 36 years, she looks back and wonders what else she could have done so passionately other than living with elephants, getting to know and understand them and offering them protection.
With elephants being at risk of poaching, the research project keeps records of every elephant to ensure their safety.
“At Amboseli we have 53 family units. We have arranged them alphabetically. We know the elephants by their name because we give them names based on their personalities or body marks.”
The easiest distinct features are on their big ears, tusks or tails.
Gail’s ear has several holes that easily distinct her from other elephants.
The moment Norah and her team get concerned that any of the 1,500 elephants at the Amboseli ecosystem are missing, they report it to the Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS).
The centre works closely with the community and with the support of KWS, there has been no poaching in Amboseli for the last four years.
The elephants in Amboseli mostly die of old age or injury or other natural causes.
Norah and her colleagues reside in tents at the research centre which is visible from afar due to elephant skulls, bones and jaws stacked there.
Though it’s sad that the elephants died, their history has been preserved to guide ways in which the living ones can be protected.
Each of the pieces represents a story about the death of every elephant in Amboseli.
Picking an old elephant jaw Norah explained; “if elephants have dentists they can live just like us. This used to be Debra. She died of starvation at age 70. Females mostly die of old age. Male elephants are more risk takers and can die because of injuries.”
“Old elephants die due to starvation. Their teeth get old and weak and elephants cannot feed anymore.”
At the age of 12, elephants are ready to start giving birth and they can get up to about eight calves by the time they stop giving birth at the age of 55.
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