Tsavo Trust

19/09/2026

KU1 has a large tear in his left ear. It is one of the features our team uses to recognise this bull, first recorded as an emerging tusker, now a Super Tusker.

This is how individual histories take shape in the field. A familiar ear marking. The shape of a tusk. Our team crosses what they see with what has been recorded before, notes his condition, notes the company he is keeping, adds another entry to the record. Our Big Tusker Project has been building those histories since January 2013. In 2025, aerial and Team Tembo ground crews recorded 229 Big Tusker sightings across the Tsavo Conservation Area, one every day and a half.

Every record is another piece of the picture our work with the Kenya Wildlife Service and the Wildlife Research and Training Institute is built on.

Following an elephant through decades of his life takes patience and funding that comes back every year. As we remember Dida at Matbronze on 2 October, the work carries on for tuskers like KU1.

Join us for Bronze Nights and the unveiling of the second edition of Denis Mathews' life-sized bronze of Dida. All ticket-sale profits go to Tsavo Trust, in support of elephant conservation in Kenya.

Reserved Garden Table — KES 18,000 for six guests / KES 3,000 each. Includes a reserved table, exhibition and unveiling entry, live music, a welcome drink each, and access to the gallery and sculpture gardens. Two bottles of house wine or prosecco (or a bucket of lager for the table). Food and additional drinks available to purchase.

Bring five friends. Thank you for keeping this work going.

📅 Friday 2 October 2026 · 6:30pm – 11:00pm
📍 Matbronze Art Gallery and Foundry · 2 Kifaru Lane, Karen, Nairobi

🎟 Book: https://mookh.com/bronze-nights-exhibition-unveiling-dida/

19/09/2026

Sometimes, supporting conservation begins with something as practical as a pair of boots.

Today, Joshua Kitavi, Morris Muema, Jackson Makau and Alex Shikari take on the 21-kilometre Wildlife Ranger Challenge for Tsavo Trust.

The challenge offers a glimpse into what year-round fieldwork demands, preparation, reliable equipment, careful observation, endurance and persistence.

In 2025 alone, Tsavo Trust's ground teams covered 13,443 kilometres on foot across the Tsavo Conservation Area. Behind that figure are people working in the field throughout the year, monitoring wildlife, identifying threats and helping protect this landscape.

Tsavo's demanding terrain also takes a toll on equipment. A contribution of $40 could help provide a ranger with a new pair of trekking boots.

Thanks to your support, we have already surpassed our fundraising target. We are deeply grateful to everyone who helped us get here.

But the opportunity to contribute remains open until 30 September.

Today, cheer on the team. Then help us keep practical resources where they are needed, in the field.

Support the campaign: wildlife.rangerchallenge.org/campaigns/tsavo-trust-2026

KenyaConservation

19/09/2026

Today is race day.

Joshua Kitavi, Morris Muema, Jackson Makau and Alex Shikari are taking on the 21-kilometre Wildlife Ranger Challenge for Tsavo Trust.

One race cannot capture everything that conservation fieldwork requires but it gives us an opportunity to recognise the endurance, preparation and persistence behind the work.

In 2025, Tsavo Trust's ground teams travelled 13,443 kilometres on foot across the Tsavo Conservation Area, supporting wildlife monitoring, threat detection and the protection of this vast landscape.

That work also depends on practical equipment.

Tsavo's demanding terrain wears out essential gear quickly. A contribution of $40 could help provide a field team member with a new pair of trekking boots.

Thanks to everyone who has already supported the campaign, we have surpassed our fundraising target.

The fundraising page remains open until 30 September, so those who would still like to contribute can continue doing so.

Today, join us in cheering on the team and recognising the people behind every kilometre covered in the field.

Support the campaign: wildlife.rangerchallenge.org/campaigns/tsavo-trust-2026

18/09/2026

A big thank you to everyone who has supported Tsavo Trust's Wildlife Ranger Challenge team.

Tomorrow, Joshua Kitavi, Morris Muema, Jackson Makau and Alex Shikari will represent Tsavo Trust in the 21-kilometre Wildlife Ranger Challenge.
The challenge gives us an opportunity to recognise the people behind year-round conservation work across Tsavo.

In 2025 alone, Tsavo Trust’s ground teams covered 13,443 kilometres on foot across the Tsavo Conservation Area. These patrols support wildlife monitoring, threat detection and the wider work of protecting this landscape.

We are grateful to everyone who has donated, shared the challenge and encouraged the team so far.

Although we have already passed our target, the fundraising page remains open until the end of September. Those who would still like to contribute can continue supporting the practical resources needed by teams working in the field throughout the year.

For now, we are counting down to race day.

Join us on 19 September as we support Joshua, Morris, Jackson and Alex through their 21-kilometre challenge.

You can continue giving here:
https://wildlife.rangerchallenge.org/campaigns/tsavo-trust-2026

17/09/2026

An encouraging sight in Kamungi Conservancy.

During recent fieldwork, our community team encountered this Masai giraffe moving through Kamungi Conservancy, an exciting sight in an area where giraffes have rarely been recorded in recent years.

For more than 12 years, Tsavo Trust has worked alongside the Kamungi community to make the Conservancy safer for both people and wildlife. This long-term partnership has strengthened protection through Kamungi’s community scouts and supported conservation and livelihood initiatives that have reached more than 8,000 people.

Seeing a giraffe moving through the Conservancy is an encouraging sign of the positive changes taking place across this shared landscape. Observations such as this demonstrate what sustained community conservation, effective protection and a shared commitment to coexistence can achieve.

15/09/2026

Supporting community-led conservation means supporting the local leadership that guides it.

On 21 August 2026, Tsavo Trust joined the Kamungi Conservancy Board for its quarterly meeting, providing an opportunity to review progress, discuss key priorities and guide the Conservancy’s strategic direction.

Quarterly Board meetings are an important part of responsible conservancy management. They bring leaders together to consider progress against plans, strengthen governance structures and provide oversight of the Conservancy’s work.

For Kamungi, this means keeping local leadership at the centre of decisions that shape the Conservancy’s future. Through regular review and planning, the Board helps connect community priorities with the long-term sustainable management of the Conservancy.

We thank the Kamungi Conservancy Board for its continued leadership and engagement. Tsavo Trust remains committed to working alongside the Conservancy in support of community-led conservation that benefits members and the broader community.

15/09/2026

Two recent sightings from Tsavo, an adult leopard resting under low branches and an adult female walking through dry bush with her tail curled behind her.

Leopards are among the most adaptable big cats in the world and among the hardest to study. They are solitary, largely nocturnal and defend home ranges of tens of square kilometres. They hunt by getting very close to prey often stalking to within a few metres before rushing the last stretch. In Tsavo, dik-dik is a typical target, though the diet extends to hyrax, warthog and larger animals when the opportunity comes.

Catching a meal is only half the work. Lions and hyenas will steal a leopard's kill if they can. That is why leopards uniquely among African cats haul their prey into trees. It really does reduce losses, particularly to hyenas.

Every leopard also carries a rosette pattern that belongs to it alone. Photograph one clearly and researchers can recognise it again next time, the basis of individual monitoring for a species that rarely lets itself be seen twice.

Where leopards choose to live in Tsavo follows the ecology. A 2020 study, using survey data from 2013, found more leopards in the moister, more densely vegetated areas of the Tsavo Conservation Area, the kind of bush that gives both cover to hunt from and habitat for the animals leopards eat.

For over a decade, Tsavo Trust has contributed to monitoring these carnivores in partnership with WRTI and KWS. Aerial patrols. Team Tembo ground observations. Camera trap data. All of it goes into a shared record that a species this quiet genuinely needs.

Our community conservation work runs alongside. In Kamungi Conservancy, on the northern boundary of Tsavo West National Park, our long-term partnership with the community, through the 10% Fence programme, HWC response, livelihoods and coexistence support is a lot of what decides whether Tsavo's carnivores continue to have somewhere to live.

Two sightings this month. Two more entries in a record that only really starts to mean something after years of them.

A culture of conservation.

12/09/2026

Dida was one of Tsavo’s iconic cow tuskers, a remarkable female carrying an impressive set of ivory. Our teams knew her for years as she led her family through Tsavo’s long seasons.

An experienced matriarch is worth more to an elephant family than any single individual. Research from Amboseli, led by Karen McComb, showed that older matriarchs are significantly better at recognising the threat posed by unfamiliar male lions, a judgement that saved calves in field trials and one younger females often lacked.

When one of our pilots found Dida's remains on 31 October 2022, the Kenya Wildlife Service estimated her age at 60 to 65. She had died naturally with both tusks intact. In a landscape where most elephants across Africa are lost long before old age, that is what protection over a lifetime looks like.

Our aerial and Team Tembo ground crews continue to monitor Tsavo's elephants in support of KWS and the Wildlife Research and Training Institute. It is work that needs sustained support, across generations of elephants, the ones we have known and the ones we are only beginning to know.

On Friday 2 October, Matbronze will unveil the second edition of Denis Mathews' life-sized bronze of Dida. All ticket-sale profits go to Tsavo Trust, in support of elephant conservation in Kenya.

VIP Collectors Table — KES 42,000 for six guests / KES 7,000 each. Includes premium reserved table, exhibition and unveiling entry, live music, a welcome drink each, two bottles of wine or prosecco (or a bucket of lager for the table), a BBQ voucher per guest and a KES 3,000 gallery voucher. Additional food and drinks available to purchase.

📅 Friday 2 October 2026 · 6:30pm – 11:00pm
📍 Matbronze Art Gallery and Foundry · 2 Kifaru Lane, Karen, Nairobi

🎟 Book: https://mookh.com/bronze-nights-exhibition-unveiling-dida/

11/09/2026

In dry African ecosystems, water shapes far more than where animals drink. It influences where wildlife moves, where herbivores feed, how vegetation is used and even where predators encounter their prey.

Artificial waterholes can provide an important resource during drought, but making water permanently available can also alter natural patterns. Studies have found concentrations of herbivores, increased pressure on surrounding vegetation and changes in elephant movements. Research from Hwange has even shown that African wild dogs alter their behaviour around waterholes to avoid larger carnivores such as lions, leopards and spotted hyenas.

The effects are not necessarily positive or negative. In Kruger National Park, decades of artificial water provision eventually led managers to close more than half of the park’s artificial waterholes as evidence emerged that permanent water was altering wildlife distribution and reducing some of the landscape’s natural variability. Yet removing water did not benefit every species either.

This is particularly relevant in Tsavo, where seasonal water scarcity is a natural part of the ecosystem. Tsavo Trust has constructed sand dams that retain water within the sand of seasonal river systems, rather than creating conventional permanently pumped surface waterholes. Whether this approach produces different ecological effects is an important area for further research.

Our latest article explores a deceptively complicated conservation question: when we provide water for wildlife, what else in the ecosystem do we change?

Follow the link to learn more.

In dry African ecosystems, access to water can determine where animals move, feed and survive. Providing additional water can therefore appear to be a relatively straightforward conservation intervention. Ecologically, however, the consequences are considerably more complex.