Anna, Thank you, Thankyou for your kind donation… So appreciated.. And sorry to have disappeared.. I temporarily lost my head, and left my computer, after I was given the news that our little kudu had died… His mother had been killed by hunting dogs, and he arrived very dehydrated, and had a sore stomach, which we just could not get right, and he died after a week.. We are not having much luck at the moment, Here is a picture of the beautiful animal, at the scouts meeting..

Every two months we bring all the scouts back to base, to catch up with all that is going on in their various areas.. This means collectively they cover about 2000 kms by foot to get to the base, and back… If you are interested you can check on our main website on the map… We have 4 scouts on the west side of the Matthews range, 6 in Nairimirimo/Suiyan areas to the west of the Laana Nikan [Seiya] Lugga, between the Matthews and Kirisia hills… 3 between the Matthews and Ndoto Mountains, on the Milgis Lugga, 3 along the east side of the Ndotos, 4 west of the Ndoto mountains, and one on the south end of the Ol Donyo Maras…The base is on the Junction of the Laana Nikan/Parsaloi Luggas where it becomes the Milgis… As you can imagine they pick up quite alot of info on their way to get here, plus what has happened in their areas during the last two months and at the meetings there is generally an awful lot to catch up on… the meeting quite often goes on till the evening… The big news this month is this Sandalwood Scandal!!

For months I have been hearing of the threat!!… And finally on the 10 February the scout from Nairimirmo was tipped off !!. Lorries coming in to the east side of the Kirisia hills, to collect already cut Sandal wood, cut by community members. He went to the place with a home guard [ a police reservist]…He informed the base of the problem…Things became quite dangerous for them as they tried to stop the lorry leaving, they were offered bribes of quite considerable money, but he persevered, and kept in touch with the base station into the night, who in turn managed to raise the alarm by signalling with a torch, to Elkanto.. Finally they got to the KWS station, at Latakwen, who immediately headed off into the black of the night to help… on arrival they took over the lorry, and stayed with it for two days… The outcome is still a mystery to us??!!

Our two scouts in the Suiyan area reported a rush of Elephants back from the Kirisia hills down the Parsaloi Lugga having seen the tracks heading up a few days before… They went to investigate what was up and found a week old dead elephant… but with the tusks still in… Must be Samburu, as they had not cut the tusks out, see my last blog…..There was also signs of human tracks around.. They pulled to see if the tusks would come out, and 1 did.. They hid it well, and we called the KWS from Latakwen.. The next morning they went back to find that poachers had been following their tracks!, and had managed to pull the second tusk out.. Which they duly hid, and then went to try and find the first one… Luckily they did not find it, but our scouts found theirs! The two scouts were able to hand the tusks over to KWS… What we think is the Elephant must have been killed as the herd headed to the hills, but they must have come across more poachers further up, where we have reported poaching going on before, and come back down to relative safety.. These developments, elephant poaching, are VERY worrying and very serious…

We have also investigated what could have happened to the mother of the new born elephant calf that we took to the Sheldrick orphanage on the 15th feb.. Who sadly did not make it, with stomach problems and pneumonia.. There are a few thoughts to what happened to the mother and also why the little one died.. A few herds of Elephants that had come from the south east of the Matthews, were heading for the Ndoto mountains… Two reasons for this… One could have been poachers, and possibly the mother was killed, or too frightened to wait for such a small one..or the fact that the last bit of rain that we had at full moon was in the Ndoto mountains…If this is so why did the baby get left behind.. Our scouts can’t agree.. Some say that she got stuck in an erosion drain, but others say it was not deep enough, and the mother would have got her out…But at this stage her tracks were not around??.. others say that the mother was too young, she could have deserted the calf, before it got the all important colostrum milk… What ever happened sadly the little calf, so young, still pink behind the ears, was two days without its mother, we have found out that it was fed tea, and uji [maizemeal porridge], by the people who first found it… These people were new comers who had come in from the desert for greener pastures and had not got the message about not giving a young elephant any thing and they were only doing their best to feed the baby on what they had … Again every one is extremely sad for this loss… We live and learn and will do a new campaign throughout to explain about Elephants…