ELEPHANT RESEARCH CENTER

                             All About Elephants 

While in Amboseli we visited the Elephant Research Center one afternoon. In 1972 Cynthia Moss established the Center to do the most comprehensive study of elephants ever done.

            Her palm tree oasis included four sleeping tents, a dining tent, kitchen, shower, and outhouse. Two maintenance men and three research aids were employed as full time residents in this oasis. Ms. Moss continues to head up the program.

            During a lecture an aide told us, “Droughts in 1976 and 1984 killed many elephants. The reserve now has a population of 830 identified and named elephants. About fifteen elephant babies are born each year.

            “At birth a baby weighs on average 260 pounds and stands three feet tall. The gestation period is 22 months. A baby elephant is born with two sets of teeth. Over its lifetime the elephant has several sets of teeth, the sixth set coming in at about age 40 will last 20-25 years. Eventually when the elephant can no longer eat he dies and his average life span is 60-65 years.”

            Male elephants mature at about 14 years and at that point he leaves the family. Tusks appear at about 2-2 ½ years. A family is led by the matriarch of the herd, not by a male as is mistakenly and commonly believed. Males socialize together. Babies stay with the mother. When you see a lone elephant it is usually a young male who has left the family and who has not yet linked up with others.

            A female elephant goes into estrus (fertile) only 4-6 days every four years! A male comes into musth once a year and not all males are in musth at the same time. However, a male may be sexually active even at times when he is not is musth. He is fertile when in musth and the time is definitely marked as he dribbles urine and secretes a smelly fluid from a gland behind the ear. The body hormone changes also gives him a distinctive walk.

            Adult elephants eat 300 pounds of food a day often traveling 20 Kilometers (12 miles).  An adult male weighs 12,000 pounds; a female half of that. Elephants walk in a straight line like playing follow the leader, as many animals do, especially when migrating. Their paths across the plains are 12-14 inches wide. Sometimes people think these paths are tire tracks.

I said to my son, “When you think of the size of these animals it is amazing they leave such a small track/ path.”

This was an interesting visit and I certainly learned a lot about elephants I did not know.