Mission to Mali Part 2: Retrieving the Collars
A team of wildlife scientists and conservationists made a visit to Mali this spring to recover the tracking collars placed on the elephants by Anne Orlando, the researcher featured in the Lost Elephants of Timbuktu, in 2000. Dr. Iain Douglas-Hamilton of the U.K.-based conservation organization, Save the Elephants, led the team along with Jacky Houdret, the producer of Lost Elephants. The following is their account of the mission. Eventually, a full report will be given to the government of Mali to help them better manage their unique elephant population and the special relationship between the Mali people and these animals.
Save the Elephants: Mission to the Elephants of the Gourma in Mali
April 30, 2002
The objective was to recover eight radio collars placed on elephants in early 2000 and to make an aerial census of the whole elephant population for the Malien government. Anne Orlando, an American research student working on a Save the Elephants project, placed the collars, which were made by a Swedish company, Televilt, on the elephants in February and March 2000. They were capable of recording the exact position of the elephant by GPS satellites every two hours and storing it in memory. This advanced technology was intended to help understand the movements and needs of these animals in order to safeguard their future. An elephant census was conducted concurrent under the auspices of the CITES Treaty (Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Flora and Fauna), which has a special program to monitor the illegal killing of elephants, known as MIKE ( Monitoring the Illegal Killing of Elephants).
The team found most of the elephant population at Lake Banzena in the Gourma, one of the few remaining sources of water. Three elephants with radio collars were quickly located by radio-tracking from a small airplane piloted by Dr. Douglas-Hamilton. This airplane was a Cessna 172, lent to the project by the Ouagadougou Flying Club. The team then followed up on the ground. The elephants were often in very large herds of 120 to 140 animals, which made approaching the correct elephant quite difficult. Dr. Githaiga, a veterinarian from Kenya, prepared the anesthetic drugs to immobilize the elephants. Mr. Henrik Rasmussen, a zoologist also from Kenya, and M. El Mehedy, an expert on the Gourma elephants, together with Dr. Githaiga then carefully approached the elephants from downwind, so that the elephants should not become alarmed by the human smell. The Gourma elephants are said to be particularly sensitive to the smell of foreigners, and this was borne out by our experience. We found the elephants would tolerate local Touaregs upwind, but would panic as soon as they caught a whiff of our scent. The stalking therefore required great skill and we were greatly helped by El Mehedy and the local Touaregs, and by the airplane in locating the elephants. Dr. Steve Blake, a zoologist normally working on elephants in the forests of the Congo, made all the observations and kept records.
Dr. Githaiga and Mr. Rasmussen shot the anesthetic darts into the elephants. Four elephants were darted and four collars were recovered with no great difficulties. The collars were very heavily worn and in some cases the data module was about to drop off. Elephants are such strong creatures that any device attached to them has to withstand extremely rough treatment, and extremes of pressure, heat and submersion in water. Unfortunately, the other collars could not be located and had probably been damaged or destroyed by the elephants. The three working collars were taken to base camp at Lake Banzena where they were connected to a computer and the elephant movement information was recovered. This information was then analyzed to reveal the details of the elephant migration.
This radio-tracking has revealed some exceptional results and discoveries. We have now been able for the first time to record the exact migration route of three elephants in the Gourma. The total route covered in the course of a year is approximately 450 km. This is the largest known migration route of any elephants in Africa. The range of these elephants has also been measured accurately. In total the ranges of these elephants varied from 11,600 to 24,300 km2, which once again is the largest recorded for elephants in Africa. The total area occupied by the whole elephant population is about 30,000 km2.
The shape of the elephant migration is also of great interest as they move in a complete circle in a counter-clockwise direction. The distances between water points are large and it is essential that the elephants make the right decision before moving or they could die of thirst if they should arrive at a waterhole that has dried up. In April, the driest month of the year, most elephants are found at Lake Banzena in the northwest of their range. Our results show that as soon as the rains come they move south
These elephants are the most northern elephants in the whole of Africa and the only population that lives totally in the Sahel. The respect shown to the elephants in the local culture is also of exceptional interest and unique in Africa.
Part of our mission was to talk to the local people to learn about their views on living with elephants. A number of formal and informal interviews were held with local people, conducted mainly by Saba Douglas-Hamilton, the anthropologist for the expedition. We found that the traditional nomads had a very positive attitude toward the elephants with whom they have shared the land for hundreds or thousands of years. The Touareg and Pheul nomads do not hunt these elephants. The only conflict comes from a change in the way of life where people who have lost their livestock are beginning to grow small gardens around the few perennial lakes, such as Lake Gossi.
These elephants are living under the most extreme conditions known for elephants. Their situation is highly precarious as their range has greatly diminished over the last 30 years. Formerly, when Dr. Iain Douglas-Hamilton came to Mali in 1979 they still ranged far to the west to permanent water sources that have since dried up. The Mali elephant range has diminished from 142,000 km2 in 1970 to 30,000 km2 today, and all the populations that still existed in the 1970s, other than the Gourma elephant population, have become extinct. This is the last Sahelian elephant population in Africa.
The elephant census was made from the air and covered the places where the elephants are extremely concentrated at this time of year, that is, around the few remaining water sources, namely, Lake Banzena, Inadyatafan, Indamen and Lake Gossi. We can confirm that there are definitely 322 elephants, which we saw and counted with another possible 50 at the most. Although only the lower figure is exact we do not believe there are more than 375 elephants in the Gourma, and since there appear to be no other elephants left in the country this constitutes the entire population of elephants in Mali. This compares with estimates of 1,000 elephants made in the late 1970s.
The greatest threat to the future of these elephants is further climatic change with drying up of water sources and increased competition with man for drinking water. As nomads change their lifestyle and become more settled there is also a threat from increasing agriculture around the few lakes where elephants have to come to drink. Finally, there is the threat from the ivory trade if the conditions banning the trade are relaxed by CITES.
For the future conservation of these elephants we recommend that the traditional tolerance between the nomads and the elephants should be encouraged by developing sensitive ecotourism projects that bring some revenue to local people from visitors who want to watch elephants in the Gourma. Development of new water supplies and roads should be accompanied by environmental impact studies of the likely effect on the elephant population. Within a West African context these elephants are very important, as they constitute one of the largest surviving elephant populations in this region of Africa.
