137, 142, 155,156, 157 There are 157 elephants in sight!!!

One of the main reasons I came back to Kenya was to visit the famous national parks that provide habitat for thousands of incredible animals. There is nothing more exhilarating than sitting on top of a land rover, binoculars in hand, skimming the landscape for lions, elephants, buffalo, wildebeest, giraffe, zebras etc. as the wild blows in your face. No matter how many hours I spend observing animals it seems that the day dissolves into a red sunset too quickly and the animals disappear into darkness.
Every couple years the Kenya Wildlife Service conducts a census on all the Wildlife in the national parks to determine how animal populations have fluctuated. In two weeks we will be helping with the census in Amboseli National Park and doing a number of statistical calculations to determine what parts of the ecosystem have changed in the past several years. Human population increase in the area has caused a number of stress factors on this ecosystem including habitat fragmentation, decreased wetlands, more human-animal conflicts etc. To practice for the count we have been making trips to Amboseli and recording every animal we see - which seems like a simple task, but is actually quite tedious. We not only record the number of animals we see, but also the social organization, age structure, gender ratio, and our exact location with a GPS. Amboseli is predominantly known for its elephants and on the first day alone we counted over 150 elephants (along with hundreds of other animals) before we gave in to darkness. As we drove away from the park we closed up the sunroofs, put away our equipment, and sat down with a daze. Exhausted and covered with dust, we all started to drift off… when all of the sudden the driver slammed on the brakes and the car skidded across the dirt road. We all awoke with a start as a mother giraffe and her baby appeared out of the cloud of dust only a few feet in front of our car. The last light of the day made them look like a painting as they walked off into the acacia trees.