'What a wonderful experience for our family. You two have set up a "home away from home"
and we LOVED it.!!!!! You absolutely made the experience the ABSOLUTE BEST!......
Thank you so much for sharing your world with us, we will never forget it.'

Kenny G

Spread out along the great Ewaso River, hidden under branches of Kigelia trees, the world of elephants begins.

To be accepted by wild elephants as a family member is a very special honor, treasured forever. Like us, elephants live in close-knit family units and take special care of their young.

Every elephant and big is individually known; and birds, trees and local culture are talked about animatedly with pride and scientific expertise.

It is where science, culture, style and conservation join hands and are at their best.

Elephant Watch works together with Save the Elephants to secure a future for elephants.

Samburu National Reserve offers shelter to 66 known elephant family units numbering 900 elephants in total. These 66 families, which typically consist of a martriarch and her offspring, are assigned to one of three groups: the "Residents," the "Migrants," and the "Sporadics." As the names suggest, the Residents remain in the Reserve for most of the year, the Migrants move between Samburu Reserve and other areas, and Sporadics only pass through the Reserve from time to time.

Each elephant family is named, and each elephant within that family is named accordingly. For example, Queen Elizabeth, Cleopatra, and Anastasia belong to the Royals, (Residents) who are the dominant family in the Reserve, while Babylon, Jerusalem and Nazareth belong to the Biblical Towns, (Migrants) making random visits. Then Naivasha, Natron and Turkana belong to the Rift Valley Lakes (Sporadics) and only visit the Park in July and August.

In addition to all these families, are the "bulls," the adult males numbering 200 who live in solitude and wander far and wide in search of food and females, a high risk and gain strategy, so often get shot by poachers for ivory or because of crop raiding. We have already lost our biggest bulls, Mungu, Picasso, Martin Luther King, Gorbachev amongst others.