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Just south of Tombouctou, where the sand dunes of the Sahara merge with a scattering of trees and shrubs, live the world's most peripatetic elephants. Mali's desert elephants migrate almost 300 miles in a year, as far as 35 miles in a day, all in pursuit of water. These elephants are "living on the edge, in the most extreme conditions," says biologist Iain Douglas-Hamilton, founder of Save the Elephants. "Their survival depends on making good decisions."
Their survival depends on human decisions too. The Tuareg nomads who share the elephants' territory "have a remarkable culture of toleration," Douglas-Hamilton says, and don't hunt the animals. As recently as 1970, several elephant populations lived in other parts of the Sahel, as the southern border of the Sahara is known. Poachers got most of them, and now only Mali's remain.
Douglas-Hamilton and other scientists and conservationists are tracking this small herd of nomadic elephants to see where and when they migrate. In 2000, researchers attached GPS collars to nine elephants; they later recovered three working units. The high-tech data (from animals dubbed Ahni, Elmehdi and Doppit Gromoppit) confirmed what some elephant-watchers had suspected for decades: the pachyderms follow a vast, counterclockwise route dotted with temporary and permanent watering holes. They linger at a lake on the northern edge of their range until the rains begin in June, then head south, eventually crossing briefly into northern Burkina Faso.
Nomadic animals are hard to protect—you can't build a fence around them and charge admission. But Vance Martin, president of The WILD Foundation, a nonprofit conservation organization, says there is "great political will in Mali to protect these animals and perhaps see them as a mobile national park." Malians have already demonstrated their affection: when a massive drought dried up the elephants' last remaining water source in 1983, the government (a constitutional democracy) trucked in water for the beasts.
The goal of ongoing tracking projects, Martin says, is to identify "choke points"—corridors the elephants must traverse to complete their migration. The WILD Foundation, Save the Elephants and other organizations are providing recommendations to the World Bank for a $9 million project to protect Mali's natural resources. By documenting where the elephants roam, not just from water hole to water hole but in search of fodder and cover, people can avoid blocking their routes with permanent settlements.
It's not easy to study Mali's elephants. They're skittish. Unlike their kin in East Africa, which all but pose for photo-snapping tourists in Land Rovers, these elephants run from the sound of an engine. They hide in thorny acacia forests during the day, when the temperature routinely reaches 120 degrees Fahrenheit, emerging to drink from water holes in the cooler privacy of the night.
With patience and lots of memory cards for their digital cameras, however, elephant researchers have amassed enough photographs of the camera-shy animals to identify about 250 individuals. Freelance photographer Carlton Ward Jr. provided 3,000 pictures to the photo identification project; team members there have captured another 2,000 useful images. Researchers think there are at least 400 elephants in the group, based on photographs, aerial surveys and studies of dung deposits (the more dung, the logic goes, the more elephants; much of a wildlife biologist's work is somewhat less than glamorous).
Elephants may look alike to you and me, but the shapes of their ear flaps and their tusks set them apart. The heat-releasing ear flaps have distinctive folds and, over an elephant's 60-year life span, they often accumulate tears.
I think that this is a good idea to do!!!
Posted by on December 19,2007 | 09:54AM
A lot of articles are stating over-population in Africa. You Aren't, and I like the contrast. has good text for thoughts about elephants.
Posted by Yamile on April 6,2008 | 09:53PM
Eco-ethics seem to be all but forgotten of late in pursuit of the all-mighty dollar. Thankfully the people of Mali have not forgotten the higher-power's creatures.
Posted by Anna Marie Dunn on April 22,2008 | 02:26PM
This is a great thing that everyone should be involved in.
Posted by Danielle Brown on April 27,2008 | 02:14PM
I pray for these and all beset creatures.
Posted by Shumaka on July 21,2008 | 10:49AM
I need to know more about elephant
Posted by Thomas Garvey on April 22,2009 | 11:05AM