On a wet-season patrol in Marsabit National Reserve in 1982, a herd's grief led rangers to a poached elephant—and to a wounded honey thief the elephants had covered with branches, mistaking him for dead.
On patrol in Marsabit National Reserve during a wet season in early 1982, the park rangers and I noticed vultures perched along the forest edge. Vultures are scavengers; they find carcasses by soaring high and scanning the land below.
We moved cautiously into the thicket. The sour-sweet smell of death met us first. Ahead, a small herd of elephants stood in a tight circle around an elephant carcass. They seemed to be mourning one of their own. Moving closer would have been reckless, so we kept to the trees and watched in silence.
A female raised her trunk to test the wind and trumpeted. Her huge companion strode forward, trunk lifted, and let out a blast. They had caught our scent. I fired a warning shot from my heavy-calibre rifle to drive them off. The herd scattered into the forest and disappeared.
When we reached the carcass, we saw the tusks were gone. Poachers had been there. Large portions of meat were missing too. The herd had likely kept vigil over their fallen companion for days.
We followed an elephant path and, by mid-afternoon, reached a pool in the bed of a seasonal river. As we rested, we heard faint cries for help in Borana, coming from about fifty yards away. Under a heap of dry leaves and broken branches, we found a man.
It seemed the elephants had snapped branches and piled them over him, as if to cover a body, then left.
A quick search turned up a giraffe-skin bag slung over his left shoulder, filled with honey and combs, and two long iron knives used for harvesting honey. The rangers recognized him as Adan Dida, a middle-aged man from Manyatta Jilo village — well known for stealing honey and hunting.
We asked what he was doing inside the forest reserve. He said he had climbed a tree to harvest honey, fallen, and been badly injured. Bees had swarmed and stung him until he lost consciousness. When night fell, two elephants approached, feeling him with their trunks. Frozen by fear, he lay still. Believing him dead, they covered him with branches.
We took him to hospital. He later died from his injuries.
Elephants are remarkably intelligent. They recognize death and grieve their kin, and their responses to loss can mirror our own. In Marsabit that season, we saw it with our own eyes — toward both elephant and human death.
This account was shared with Wild East Visuals by The Wildlife Veteran, a former wildlife warden who served in Marsabit National Reserve in the 1980s. It is published here as part of our Field Notes series — firsthand stories from the people who have lived and worked closest to Africa's wildlife.
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