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 ATE team had already noticed that Kalume's health had not been in good shape for the last nine months. His walk was not steady – as if possessing pain in the joints. We thought that he might be suffering from 'twisting disease'. (Twisting disease hits elephants after they feed on certain plants that have side effects on the joints, causing them to walk in a twisting manner.) According to our studies, elephants who have suffered from this, always recover after two weeks, but it took a lot more time for Kalume to recover, and we had to assume the worst – Kalume was nearing his death.

He was always spotted in the southern part of the park, feeding and drinking from the swamp. His health was becoming worse day by day; his feet began to swell, developing some cracks in the skin, rendering him immobile. As Kalume's condition worsened, he was unable to walk very far, and so he became thinner and thinner. In the end he may have died from malnutrition, but we suspect that something else was troubling Kalume. We realised that we had seen conditions similar to his on two previous occasions – in another large adult male and in a calf. Both of these elephants also died. Kalume is too young to die of old age. We need a vet to come to do a post-mortem on Kalume and others to solve the riddle of these mysterious illnesses.

From the images I have posted above – in the first image you can make out the amount of dung that came from him as he was struggling to his last breathe, an indication that he died in tremendous pain. His death was realized in the morning of May 24th '09, and that is not all, the position where his body lies is more or less unreachable. The last image illustrates the standpoint of the photographer, followed by the swamp that is famous to be the favourite habitat for hippopotamus. As you can see from all the images, the swamp covers the whole perimeter surrounding the body.

Amboseli KWS are keeping the body on watch day-in, day-out, until the concerned parties come up with a way of uprooting the tusks.