A group of 13 elephants from the United Kingdom is expected to arrive in Kenya and be released into the Mwaluganje Elephant Sanctuary in Kwale County.
The elephants will be transferred in a joint project by the UK-based nonprofit Aspinall Foundation, the Kenya Wildlife Services, and the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust. They were raised at the Howletts Wild Animal Park in Kent, UK.
According to the National Environment Management Authority (NEMA), the project entails returning captive elephants from Europe to Africa for rewilding over a 7,000-kilometer journey.
The herd has been living as a family in the UK and needs to be rewilded together in order to maintain the animals’ social structures’ family bonds.
The 13 were born in captivity in Europe and have Tanzanian, Zimbabwean, and South African ancestors.
The elephants are all female, with the oldest being 34 years old and the youngest being 1.2 years old. The project is expected to reduce the global zoo industry’s trade in live elephants.
The process will be led by a team of highly skilled professionals, according to NEMA’s Environment and Social Impact Assessment (ESIA) report.
The 13 elephants, each weighing 25 tonnes, will be trained to walk into their respective crates as part of the translocation process.
They’ll be loaded onto trucks and transported to Stansted Airport, where they’ll board a plane bound for Mombasa.
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