The Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) and the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW), which carried out the collar program, said better mapping of the elephants’ travel routes would help with preservation of the areas and reduction of human-elephant conflicts.
The collars transmit a satellite and radio signal using global positioning system (GPS) technology to map out the elephants’ migratory routes and identify how expansively the elephants travel in search of water and vegetation.
IFAW CEO Azzedine Downes said elephants needed space and resources in order to be free, viable and to fulfill the flagship role they played in the environment in the region.
“We will be able to make a case for the connection of their favored habitats by securing critical corridors and securing the areas that are essential for sustaining Amboseli’s rich wildlife heritage, especially the elephants,” said Downes.
Sospeter Kiambi, KWS’s Elephant Program Coordinator, said the technology would give wildlife managers an edge over poachers and human-elephant conflict, which he said was becoming more critical to the conservation of elephants in the Amboseli ecosystem.
More than 1,400 elephants live in the Amboseli ecosystem. They spend 80 percent of time outside the national park. Since 2012, the IFAW and the KWS have collared 14 elephants in Amboseli, including the latest two or not.
Information gleaned from the previous 12 collars indicates the elephants have traversed over 17,000 square kilometers from Magadi and Suswa in the west to Tsavo West in the east. Some were found to have frequented electrically-fenced farmlands, showing that collaring can be an effective tool to monitor the movement of the animals and help put in place an early warning mechanism to reduce the human-elephant conflict. Enditem
Source: Xinhua/NewsGhana.com.gh
