Kenya's Morgan Elephant Takes Spontaneous March To Somalia, Channeling Elephant Memory Says Save The Elephants

Conservationists were stupified in the last month, when Morgan, an elephant bull in his 30s parted company with five other members of his herd on February 16, and took off for Somalia. The six elephants were outfitted with tracking collars in December as part of a research project studying elephant behavior in Kenya's Tana River Delta. 

Morgan's brief crossing into Somalia marked the first time an elephant has been seen in Somalia since 1995. More than 20,000 elephants lived near the Somalia-Kenya border in the early 1970s. Poaching has reduced that number to about 300, all of them living in Kenya.

Studying his 18 day, 137 mile journey, researchers were able to observe Morgan's adaptive behavior of survival in dangerous territory. From Tana River, the bull trudged about 12 miles on the first night before hiding in a thick forest the following day. This pattern of traveling by night and hiding by day excited researchers as further confirmation  of both elephants' memory and also an intuitive elephant awareness that the region had become less dangerous. 

When Morgan arrived in Somalia, he only went a few miles over the border and left in less than 24 hours. Researchers believed the lack of females for mating impacted the bull's short stay. 

Iain Douglas-Hamilton, founder and CEO of the Conservation Group Save the Elephants, thinks the elephant was following old migration routes he learned in his youth that were interrupted by decades of war.

“He obviously had something in his mind about where he was going,” Douglas-Hamilton said in a press release. “Out of all the tracking we’ve done in Africa, these movements—and these circumstances—are exceptional. 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.”

Kenya has become very aggressive in its anti-poaching efforts over the last year. Smithsonian reports:

Kenya has become very aggressive against poaching in recent years, employing tracking satellites, forensic science and increased patrols to reduce illegal hunting of its 38,000 remaining elephants and 1,000 rhinos, Aggrey Mutambo reports for The Daily Nation. Agreements signed in January with the US Department of the Interior and USAID to boost surveillance of ivory smuggling and provide equipment and technical aid against poaching will help even more.

Security operations near the Somali border in which wildlife officers and soldiers patrol together have stabilized the area as well. “We’re seeing more elephants...now,” Kenyan Wildlife Service Company Commander for Lamu District Charles Omondi tells Save the Elephants. “This may be due to the improved security. Unlike previous years when there was poaching, last year we didn’t record a single illegally killed elephant.”