Samburu National Reserve Welcomes Twin Baby Elephants 

Samburu National Reserve welcomed the birth of twin elephant calves on Thursday, the Tourism Ministry said.

The reserve is situated at the southeastern corner of Samburu District in the Rift Valley Province of Kenya.

It is bordered to the south by the Ewaso Nyiro River, which separates it from the Buffalo Springs National Reserve. The reserve covers an area of 165 Km² and is located around 345Km from Nairobi. 

“Twin births like this are rare – in fact, we haven’t seen twins in the park for decades!,” Conservation group Save the Elephants said. 

The two twins, one male and the other female, were born to a mother named Bora from the Winds Family.

“Twins are rarely encountered in elephant populations and form about only one per cent of births,” Save the Elephants’ founder Iain Douglas-Hamilton said in a statement. A similar occurrence was recorded in Amboseli in 2020.

According to Samburu.net, the reserve is popular, with a minimum of 900 elephants. Other animals include Grevy Zebra, Somali Ostrich, Reticulated Giraffe, Gerenuk and the Beisa Oryx. 

The latest data released by the Tourism Research Institute, in 2021, twenty-four (24) elephants were poached compared to 11 in 2020. 

“While elephant poaching has been brought in control, retaliatory killings of elephants due to Human-Elephant Conflict (HEC) is on the rise with 108 elephants having been killed as a result,”  the report states. 

In the year, the Kenya Wildlife Service conducted Wildlife Census and found out that the country is home to a total of 36,280 savanna elephants, a 2,000 increase from 34,000 elephants recorded in 2017.

KWS has enhanced anti-poaching measures to stem the illegal activity further. Involving local communities in wildlife management has been integral to their wildlife conservation strategy.

“These efforts should be continued further to sustain future elephant population growth and range expansion,” the Wildlife Census report concludes.