Kenya: Elephants Collared for Real-Time Monitoring

A Kenyan wildlife conservation group has chipped the elephants of a national park to provide real-time response times for park rangers.

On Tuesday, 28 September, the Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) took to the Shimba Hills National Reserve, over 30km outside of Mombasa, in an operation to collar the elephants in the area.

Accompanied by KWS director general, Brigadier John Waweru, cabinet secretary for the Ministry of Tourism and Wildlife, Najib Balala, and CEO of Kenya’s Wildlife Training and Research Institute, Dr Patrick Omondi, a group of KWS scientists and park officials took part in an exercise aimed at providing accurate tracking of the large land animals and enhancing conservation actions.

The KWS tweeted from its official account on the same day: “This means rangers now have the ability to respond instantly to real-time threats affecting the elephants, or predict future potential issues – for example, a herd of elephants moving towards a settlement and [reducing] human-wildlife conflict.”

Earlier in the month, a herd of the pachyderms crossed a busy road in Mariakani some 80km from the national reserve, and needless to say, they were a majestic distraction for the locals.

Kenya has an elephant population of over 36 000, the fourth-largest in the world.

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