Kilimanjaro Elephant Research and Conservation Project

In AWF's Kilimanjaro Heartland lies the West Kilimanjaro (West Kili) region of Tanzania. This region supports more than 600 elephants and is an important ecological link between Arusha and Kilimanjaro National Parks in Tanzania, and Amboseli National Park in Kenya.

While elephants within the Heartland have been studied for more than 30 years on the Kenya side, little research had been devoted to the elephants in Tanzania, and even lesser in the unprotected lands on the western portion of Mt. Kilimanjaro. With support from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the Kilimanjaro Elephant Research and Conservation Project (KERCP) was established in 2000.

Led by AWF’s elephant research scientist, Alfred Kikoti, the project aims to gain a greater understanding of the ecology of elephants in West Kili, and to initiate community conservation programs within the Maasai communities. From its inception, KERCP has collaborated closely with the Amboseli Elephant Research Project in Kenya.

Furthermore, the project recruited and trained 24 Game Scouts from 12 Maasai communities to assist with recording elephant observations, poaching activities, and human-elephant conflicts. This anti-poaching group is called the Hifadhi Network.

Spending many hours in the field, Kikoti and his Maasai Game Scouts discovered that many elephants were moving across the Kenya and Tanzania border. Based upon the photo ID records maintained by the Amboseli Elephant Research Project, Kikoti documented that more than 70% of the elephants from Amboseli National Park in Kenya were utilizing West Kili.

Some of these families had not been seen in Amboseli for over 4 years. Additionally, field observations by Kikoti and his team indicated that elephants were consistently using a relatively narrow habitat corridor as they moved across the border from southern Kenya to northern Tanzania, the Kitenden corridor.

Although the Kilimanjaro Elephant Research Project has gained valuable knowledge since 2000, more information is needed on the seasonal movements of elephants within northern Tanzania.

It has been speculated that some elephants may be moving far beyond West Kili in areas where the juxtaposition of agricultural fields and rural pastoral communities pose significant challenges for their movement outside of protected areas. Therefore, it is critical to conserve and enhance areas that facilitate these movements.

Identifying vital habitats across the region is done through the use of new technologies. Elephant movement can be tracked over large areas through the use of satellite collars; since it is not always possible to track them from ground level.

Recently, the Kilimanjaro Elephant Research and Conservation Project collared several elephants, with the hope of collaring more in the upcoming years. In order to achieve this goal, further resources will be necessary to purchase additional collars, equipment for darting elephants from a helicopter, as well as continual monitoring and mapping of their movements. Such information is crucial for identifying the habitats that make elephant dispersal possible.

In order to assess the importance of immigration and emigration in the dynamic of regional elephant populations, regional conservation corridors must be identified to develop a regional elephant management plan for the Kilimanjaro Heartland.

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