Jacob Kipaa, a local Massai recently returned home from completing his Masters Degree in China for two years. He is one of the lucky students who are sponsored by the Amboseli Trust for Elephants. The project sponsored him through his Undergraduate Degree at Nairobi University here in Kenya before travelling to China.

KWS chopper arrived Amboseli at around 10 am in the morning to purposely fly KWS and ATE officials over the apparently impassable swampy perimeter surrounding Kalume’s body. The 6-seater chopper had to make two trips to complete the exercise. The first trip was to take in KWS officials together with their tools to uproot the tusks while Soila and I were on the other side awaiting the second trip.

It is with sad emotions that I regret to announce the death of Kalume – born in 1965 and one of the best known and studied bulls by the Amboseli Elephant Research Project. To be honest, I have mixed emotions toward Kalume's death. As fate would have it, it is hard for a bull of his quality to spend his entire life time and finally to die from a disease or other natural cause, in this world of inexorable hunters targeting old big bulls, claiming that they have already surpassed their 'prime time' and are no good for breeding any more.

The Amboseli Elephant Research Project has over the past years and still trains scouts from different areas all over Kenya thus extending our expertise on Elephant conservation. Amboseli is uniquely suitable place for the training as it is a protected area with an undisturbed population of wildlife. The training aims at increasing the skills of elephant conservation all over Kenya and Africa in general.

Some of the knowledge extended are covered in the below listed areas

• Identifying the Elephants (sexing, aging, foot prints)
• Recording data's – filling data sheets