Migration patterns of African elephants (Loxodonta africana) in Ol Pejeta Conservancy

Abstract: Migration is important for many animals survival; however, due to human impact the animals get more restricted. The African elephant (Loxodonta africana) is a keystone species and dependant on long-distance movement. When the migration is restricted this can cause conflicts, for example more habitat destruction or crop raiding. In this study I document elephant migration patterns in and out of Ol Pejeta Conservancy, Kenya. Camera-traps were used in order to register the passages that later were compared with data of moon phase, rainfall, month and time of the day. There was a variation in activity depending on time of day and month of the year. Moon phase effected the migration when using only the passages occurring during night (between 19pm -7am). The amount of rainfall during the previous seven days effected migration as well but not amount of rainfall during the previous 30 or 90 days. Possible explanations of why the elephants migrate are water, food, human impact such as settlements and predation by especially lions. Because the study only used camera-traps at the boarder of the conservancy it is difficult to get a full picture of why the elephants migrate and where they go and come from. By only having one year of data there can also be hard to find a seasonal variation, which also makes the task a bit harder. In order to confirm why the elephants migrate in and out of Ol Pejeta Conservancy, more information with partly different methods is needed.