Elephant attack on murran

I went out to collect forms from Lion Guardians as part of my end of week work. I met Melubo and Ritei and we had some talk about their work, and had a look at their forms where they write down their weekly observations. I started heading back to camp but before I got to Olbili, where Guardian Koikai works, it started raining. The only way to camp became flooded and the area has black cotton soil, very sticky. I was forced to spend a night at Olbili. In the morning I got some reports that a murran had been attacked by an elephant at Oltiasika community. I know the area very well, so I knew that they have only one car and it is broken down, so they have no means to take him to the clinic.

I got on my bike and headed to Oltiasika see if I could help. The murran was lying on the ground, helpless. I offered to put him on my bike but he could not sit, he had to lie down and his right leg was so bad that he couldn’t bend it.

He suffered injuries on his right leg, arm and chin.

Later the game scout came with a car and helped him to the clinic. I wish I had a car, he would not have had to wait for long to be taken to the clinic. The community seems fine and they were not going to revenge by killing elephants. Earlier in the year several elephants were speared around Amboseli in a revenge attack. Here in Kenya lions attack people very rarely. In other places, like Tanzania, lion attacks on humans are increasing (http://www.lionresearch.org/main.html) but here we are not worried about being attacked by lions and we try our best to conserve them. If you can, please help us to continue to conserve our lions. Thank you to Peter P E and an anonymous donor for their kind donations which will help us to do this. Here is a photo of a real warrior, Lion Guardian Melubo.