Throughout May, Mara Elephant Project’s ranger teams responded to human-elephant conflict incidents, conducted anti-poaching operations, trained community conservation leaders, and supported conservation initiatives across the ecosystem.
In May, MEP recorded 65.9 drone flight hours, including 54.8 daytime and 11.1 nighttime, doubling from last month as the number of human-elephant conflict (HEC) incidents increased.
As crops across the Mara landscape are ripening, elephants are drawn to farms. To help keep both communities and elephants safe, drones were deployed to mitigate 74% of all reported HEC incidents during the month, providing rangers with a rapid and effective tool for guiding elephants away from high-risk areas.
One of those deployments came when MEP’s rangers received reports of two bull elephants moving through community settlement areas near Olororok, where their presence posed a potential threat to both residents and the elephants themselves.
With people, livestock, and homesteads nearby, the team used a vehicle alongside the drone to carefully guide the bulls out of the settlement area and back towards Mara North Conservancy. By combining different mitigation tools, the rangers were able to keep the elephants moving calmly while reducing the risk of escalation or damage.
The bulls were successfully returned to safer habitat within the conservancy, helping prevent conflict and protect both wildlife and community livelihoods.
We also witnessed this month that some elephants know a secret about electric fences. MEP’s Brave ranger team responded swiftly after a GPS alert from Polaris’s collar revealed him and two other bull elephants heading towards a community settlement boundary.
Polaris approached the fence and did what only the smartest animals know to do, he probed it with his tusks, not his trunk! Elephants have learned that their trunks are far too sensitive to risk an electric charge, so they use their tusks to test the fence first. A behaviour that reveals just how intelligent and cautious these animals truly are. One touch was enough. Polaris turned around and the bulls appeared to leave the fence alone.
However, the situation still required intervention. Even when elephants register an electric charge, they are known to find ways through; stepping over low fence lines or searching for gaps and weak points along the fences. With a community settlement, people and livestock nearby, Bravo Team deployed a drone to carefully guide the three bulls along the fence line and away from the area before they had the chance to breach it.
Polaris and the two bulls were successfully guided back into the conservancy, helping prevent conflict and protect both elephants and the livelihoods of the communities that share this landscape.
While technology continues to play an important role in conservation, it is only one part of the solution. Conservation efforts beyond field operations are equally as important. This month, in the Lemek community, MEP trained new community members to use VirtualRanger, a WhatsApp-based reporting platform that allows them to report human-wildlife conflict incidents in real time. Supported by How Many Elephants, the platform helps connect communities directly with ranger teams, ensuring incidents can be reported quickly and responses coordinated more effectively.
The importance of building connections was also reflected thousands of kilometers away, when MEP’s researchers joined Grade 2 students from Sheffield Elementary School in Chicago for a virtual classroom session! The students brought plenty of curiosity, asking thoughtful questions about elephants, conservation, and the work of rangers in the Mara. Conversations like these help inspire the next generation of conservation champions while reminding us that wildlife conservation is a truly global effort.
Away from the field, MEP proudly sponsored Car No. 4 at the 2026 Rhino Charge, Kenya’s renowned conservation fundraising event. Rhino Charge raises funds for Rhino Ark’s fencing program, helping protect the Mau, Aberdares, and Mount Kenya forests, ecosystems that are critical for wildlife, water security, and local communities. Several of these landscapes also receive operational support from MEP, making the event an important opportunity to contribute to conservation efforts beyond the Mara ecosystem.
