Rare Elephants’ Survival Roulette on Kenya-Tanzania Border: Roaming in his natural habitat, Gilgil crossed from Kenya into Tanzania, and paid for it with his life

The 35-year-old super-tusker, who was just entering his reproductive years, belonged to a unique population of elephants who traverse from Kenya’s Amboseli National Park to northern Tanzania.

Super-tusker elephants —who have at least one tusk weighing over 50 kilograms —were decimated in the past by poachers. Less than 100 now remain.

“The unnatural death of any elephant is very troublesome,” said Cynthia Moss, program director at Amboseli Trust for Elephants, who has been studying this population for 51 years. “What we are trying to do as scientists is to study as natural a population as possible. So to kill an elephant just because it has big tusks goes against everything we have strived for.”

Kenya banned hunting in 1977 but it remains legal in Tanzania — where hunting companies can obtain licenses on behalf of a client. A permit to shoot an elephant costs between US$10,000 to $20,000.

However, for the last three decades, the Kenyan-Tanzanian border had been relatively safe for elephants –– until Gilgil was shot and his carcass was burnt. Then in November, another elephant was killed in Tanzania, followed by one more last month.