As Echo's family continues to mill around rather aimlessly in several small groups, I thought I'd share a couple of images of her and the story of how she got the bump on her bottom.

See the two first images above. In the one of Echo and Esprit in February 2005 you can just make out the outline of the the bump on her upper thigh. The other is a close-up taken in 2006.

I have to confess that the bump was my doing. In 1974 we decided to put radio collars on several elephants to track their movements in and out of the Park. Echo was the second target (Sona was the first: we started naming the collared ladies with radio-sounding names -- hence 'Echo' -- but quickly gave up with number three, Bertha).

Anyway, Echo's operation went smoothly. She and the tiny EB family -- only six members back then, compared to nearly 40 today -- were in the open to northeast. Using a compressed air gun I put the dart squarely in her lower right rump. She went down a few minutes later, we attached the collar, cleansed the dart wound and administered the antidote. Off she and the EBs went.

But obviously the dart wound hadn't been cleaned properly and it went a bit septic, resulting, after a couple of weeks, in her 'beauty mark'. Almost as iconic as her tusks, if I may say so.

I have lived with the guilt of her disfigurement these many years, arguing to her every time we met that, as the old adages goes, 'there is beauty in imperfection'. I believe she forgave me. The last time I saw her alive,  4 April, already she was looking a bit frail (see third picture above). But as she shuffled past the car one last time -- she got so close to my open window that I couldn't even get her in the frame with a 24mm lens -- I knew by the look in her eyes that she had forgiven me.

As saddened as we all were over Echo's death, we were heartened by the high regard in which Kenyans held her. One of Kenya's main TV stations, NTV, ran a Mother's Day special spot on Echo on the 9:00 o'clock evening news on 10 May. It's clunky and sad, but it does show the high regard in which Echo was held by all... The second clip is an interview with Patrick Omondi of KWS on the same show. It shows the concern and awe in which many Kenyans hold the Amboseli elephants.

Some friends have reporting problems in viewing the clips on this site. Let me know if you have a problem (and what browser + version you are using). You can also see the clips directly at YouTube.com:  NTV first part and second part.