Cello's Story - The Final Chapter

Cello the day after her first treatment

April 18^th in northern Kenya.  She made her way back to Lewa and was treated twice for an infection resulting from the gunshot wound.

Following her second treatment on May 1^st, Cello appeared to be improving.  But, shortly thereafter, she began to deteriorate.  We knew that immobilizing her a third time was not an option, so we decided on a somewhat unorthodox, last ditch attempt to stave off the infection – we followed her with a vehicle and shot auto-inject darts full of antibiotics into her wounded leg.  However, it soon became apparent that Cello suffered from a bone infection that would be almost impossible to combat.

On June 20^th, Cello lost her fight for life.  Despite our best efforts, we were not able to stem the infection that ravaged her body.  Saturday afternoon she laid down for the final time.  Sometime during the night, she died -- in anguish and without the family with whom she had spent her entire life.

Emaciated and exhausted, Cello rests her trunk on the tree

As matriarch, Cello had kept her family safe for over two decades, leading them to water in times of drought and bringing them to safe havens such as Lewa. Cello’s family did not come to Lewa with her – most likely they scattered in terror when the bullets were fired.  Her four-month-old calf most certainly died, too young to have survived without her mother.  The whereabouts of Cello’s family was unknown.

In March of the following year, Bassoon was also shot and wounded in the leg.  She, too, made her way back to Lewa and, once again, we darted and treated the injured elephant  -- her three-year-old calf stood vigil.  Happily, in this case there was no damage to the bone, and Bassoon made a full recovery.
 

On June 20th, Cello laid down for the final time

Since then, some members of the Instrument Family have reunited while others have joined different families and are sometimes seen on Lewa.  Harp, Bassoon and Piccolo are often together and, from time to time, Violin joins them.  But, unlike the Vegetable Family that faced a similar tragedy (see Blog  3), the Instruments have never fully recovered from the loss of their matriarch.

Cello's Story

On April 18, 2009, shots rang out in northern Kenya, and Lewa security received a report that two elephant had been shot.  Cello, one of Lewa’s best-known elephant

Cello in her prime

and matriarch of the “Instrument Family,” was now fighting for her life.  Her family had scattered in terror, and her three-month-old daughter would most certainly die.

Cello walked for eight days with little food or water, making her way back to Lewa where she knew she would be safe.  She was spotted as soon as she arrived and was treated within hours.  A bullet was removed from her right front leg, the wound was cleaned, and she was given massive doses of time-release antibiotics.   Although this treatment is often very effective, there was serious concern because bone fragments were found in the wound.   Over the next few days, Cello was closely monitored and appeared to improve; the infection was subsiding and the swelling was going down. 

Cello's wound was cleaned and long acting
antibiotics were administered

However, within a week, Cello began to deteriorate, and the decision was made to treat her one more time.  We knew there was a good chance that she might not have the strength to get up, but without treatment, she would surely die.  At 3:45, Cello was darted.  Working as quickly as possible, the team cleaned and flushed the wound and, again, injected large doses of long acting antibiotics as well as pain killers.  The "wake up" drug was given and everyone anxiously stood by.  At first, nothing.  Slowly, Cello began struggling to get to her feet, but it soon became apparent that she could not get up on her own.

Ropes were secured to Cello's tusks and a car was positioned
under her haunches to help her get her to her feet

The Lewa team sprang into action and, over the course of the next hour, strategically put ropes and cars in position. The men had to exercise extreme caution while trying to position the ropes around Cello’s tusks because although she did not have the strength to get to her feet, she was now awake and had full use of her potentially lethal trunk.  Once the ropes were in place, one car was angled to pull the ropes, and the other was stationed behind her haunches to help push her to her feet.  After several failed attempts and just when it appeared that Cello no longer had the strength to try again, all of the pieces of the puzzle came together.  The ropes were in place, the vehicles were in position and she began to rock.  At 5:13, Cello was on her feet.

Amazingly, Cello made no effort to charge the vehicles or the men who were on the ground.  On some level, she must have known that despite her fear and trauma, everyone was there to help her.  She had thanked us in her own way.

Cello was alive and over the coming weeks appeared to be improving.  However, her life still hung very much in the balance.

To be continued. . . . . .

Bulls

Let’s talk about bulls.  So far, when explaining elephant behaviour, I have focused primarily on family groups.  Bull behavior, however, is quite different.

Males begin sparring at a very young age

Older bulls spar, as well

Young bulls remain with their families for the first 10 to 13 years, but from the beginning, males will behave differently than their female counterparts.  The first “male only” behaviour that you might come across is something called “sparring.”  As with many species, elephant use playing to help prepare them for adult life.  Since elephant do not hunt, males of all ages and sizes spar in order to prepare to fight for the right to mate when they are mature bulls.  But, it is interesting to note that when you see an older calf sparring with a younger one, he is very gentle and careful not to overpower his little friend.

A mock charge from a young member
of the Flower family

If you are on safari, you may also experience a mock charge from males – some as young as six months.  Once you understand the behavior, it is quite comical.  The youngsters will almost always wait until you are safely out of range, and then run after the car with a loud trumpet as if to say, “guess I showed you.”   The closer he is to Mum, the better.  You will almost never witness this behaviour in a young female.

When bulls start to mature, they are slowly pushed out of the family.  This is a gradual process and, at first, they will come and go – hesitant to leave the security of their mother.  But, it is mandatory, and mothers will become quite forceful, if necessary. 

A magnificent musth bull -- note the streaming temporal
glands and the hourglass shape of the head

For many years, it was believed that bulls then primarily led solitary lives.  However, in Joyce Poole’s extensive study of bulls in Amboseli, she discovered that they do, in fact, form bonds and friendships and, like us, prefer to hang out with their friends.  In her study, Joyce also discovered that bulls go into a state of sexual arousal known as musth.  During this period, testosterone surges through their system causing a significant change in behaviour.   When bulls are in musth, they become much more aggressive and have only one thing on their mind – mating – and they will travel great distances in search of females in estrus.  Bulls also are most apt to fight when they are in musth, although, in actuality, this is rare.  Because strength is a function of size and bulls grow at the same rate throughout their entire lives, a young bull will almost always defer to his senior.  It is not difficult to recognize when a bull is in musth because his temporal glands are streaming and his penis dribbles a fluid that has a very strong odour.  One must definitely exercise caution when around a musth bull.

Contrary to what one might think, it can be very difficult to differentiate between male and female elephant, particularly the calves.  However, when looking at adults there are two helpful rules of thumb:  first, the under carriage of the bulls tends to slope while that of the females is more of a flat line; and second, the forehead of females is squared off while that of the males tends to be more rounded.  In addition, the older bulls are substantially bigger than adult females, and they develop an hourglass shape to their massive heads.

FOOTNOTE

Into the container for transport
to Kora National Park

Loading the sedated bull onto the
flatbed truck

In blog #10, we talked about detusking elephant in an effort to discourage them from breaking into exclusion zones.  Several of the detusked bulls have continued breaking fences on a regular basis; thus, the decision was made to relocate them.  With the support of Kenya Wildlife Service’s highly skilled team, two of the bulls were successfully moved to Kora National Park on June 4.