Tsavo Elephant Count

BY ROB DODSON – VP – Saturday 12th February 2011

The Tsavo Conservation Area 2011 elephant census found 12,572 elephants in Tsavo East, West, Chyulus, the ranches, Mkomazi and the adjoining dispersal areas.

This is up from 11,696 that were counted in the 2008 count, representing a 2.5% increase per year, which is significantly less than the 4.5% increase in numbers recorded between the 2005-2006 counts and the 2006-2008 counts.

Of significant interest is that the 2008 only found 30 carcasses, which is in line with natural deaths. This time over 500 were spotted, which is a huge increase and is likely to be attributed to the 2009 drought and the huge increase in poaching that we’ve seen over the last few months.

The Kenya Wildlife Service GIS team have promised to share all the flight transect and plot data with us once they’ve cleaned it up…

Four of the aircraft that were used by the counting teams to carry out the elephant census.

It took over 100 people a week to cover the 43,000 square kilometer Tsavo Conservation Area, which included Tsavo East and West National Parks, Galana Ranch, the Taita Ranches, the Chyulu Hills and Mkomazi National Reserve in Tanzania.