IN PICTURES - In Kenya, an elephant baby boom thanks to the fight against poaching

REPORTAGE

Here is great news, and even a victory for the conservation of wildlife in Kenya: the country has experienced a real baby boom in elephants in recent months!

Nothing to do with confinement in the face of the coronavirus pandemic, which we know has had a lot of positive effects on biodiversity - the gestation of an African elephant is about 22 months.

Sought after for the ivory of their tusks, these pachyderms are globally endangered ... And if their number has doubled in Kenya over the past 30 years, it is thanks to a merciless fight against poaching.

Report in the heart of Tsavo National Park, the largest in the country, on the border with Tanzania. 

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"The elephants fall from the sky"

Here, the man is not the master of the place.

“Look there, on the left, there is a family of elephants,” enthuses Peter Ndovi, a tourist guide for almost thirty years, behind the wheel of his safari car.

"I see two or three cubs. They hide under the branches, but there must be at least two. Before, it was very rare to see them but today, a family of ten elephants usually has five. baby elephants. So it's a boom! "

© Charlotte Simonart / Europe 1

"The elephants are falling from the sky" even recently headlined a major daily in the country.

Since the beginning of the year, the parks have recorded birth records - for some of them there are more than 150 births!

To understand, we have to go back two years, that is to say the gestation time in elephants.

The rains were then abundant and the vegetation denser, which allowed the females, in better shape, to carry their pregnancies to term.

"They are no longer poached"

Peter Ndovi takes us closer to this group of elephants, slowly, so as not to disturb the baby calves barely a few months old.

They hide between their mother's paws.

She remains unperturbed, far too busy pulling grass to feed herself.

She could almost touch us with her trunk.

“Today, I can drive the car very close to the elephants and they remain nice,” explains the guide.

“They're not as aggressive as they used to be because they're not poached anymore. A few years ago when you saw a group of elephants they were scared and ready to attack. And you know when elephants are stressed, females do not get pregnant. An elephant family usually had only one baby, sometimes none. "

© Charlotte Simonart / Europe 1

An upcoming birth of twins

This is the other explanation for the baby boom among elephants in Kenya: the anti-poaching fight, carried out mercilessly by the authorities.

In 30 years, it has doubled the number of pachyderms, up to 34,000 to date in the country.

"When I started the safaris, the elephants were slaughtered," recalls Peter Ndovi.

"I remember in 1988, I drove in the Tsavo park for 80 km. I had counted that day five dead elephants on my way, all without their tusks. But today, it is very rare. to see a dead elephant and when you see one, it died naturally because you always find it with its tusks. "

In Kenya, elephants are now living happy days.

At the foot of Kilimanjaro, the birth of twin baby elephants is even announced.

An extremely rare phenomenon in pachyderms, observed barely three times in 50 years ...