A fragile population of unique and fascinating ‘cave elephants’ exists on Mount Elgon in western Kenya. These are the only elephants in the world known to go deep into caves to mine salt.
For many years it has been widely known that these elephants penetrate 150m into Kitum Cave within Kenya’s Mount Elgon National Park, where their tusking marks are clearly visible on the cave walls. Unknown to science until very recently, however, this elephant cave-mining behaviour is more complex than previously realised and extends to at least 18 and, most probably, very many more caves.
These cave-mining elephants historically ranged across the whole mountain on the Ugandan and Kenyan sides. During the 1970’s, however, the population on the Ugandan side was wiped out. Now the entire Ugandan side of the mountain is a National Park with no permanent elephant population, while on the Kenyan side there is only a small National Park and an elephant population under significant pressure as their range extends beyond the protected area of the park.
The threats to the elephants come in part from poaching but also from human-elephant conflict. In recent years, crops grown by local people around young tree seedlings in Kenya under the Plantation Establishment Livelihood Improvement Scheme (PELIS) in or adjacent to elephant range areas have experienced widespread raiding by elephants. This results in the tragic death of local people, as well as elephants.
To help address the above, it is important to assist the relevant stakeholders by providing them with the most comprehensive information possible about elephant behaviour on Mount Elgon and the options available to reduce human-elephant conflict. This is a key objective of the Mount Elgon Elephant Project. Without this and a land use plan that mitigates human-elephant conflict, as the density of human occupation grows, the number of elephants will fall until they are locally extinct. While a remnant population might survive in the Park, both the extensive culture of ‘elephant mining’ now being revealed on the Kenya side of Mount Elgon, as well as a potentially significant opportunity to boost tourism, could be lost forever.
Banner photo: mature female elephant, Forest Reserve, Kenya. Above: top left – elephant caught in a snare tied to a heavy log, Forest Reserve, Kenya; above middle – skull of elephant killed by poachers, Forest Reserve, Kenya; top right – elephant emerging from a cave, Forest Reserve, Kenya; bottom left – elephant tusking marks in cave wall, Forest Reserve, Kenya; bottom middle – maize from crop raiding in elephant dung; bottom right – KWS ranger and elephant dung at back of Kitum Cave, Mount Elgon National Park, Kenya. (Credits: Christopher Powles, Stephen Powles and MEEP.)
Learn More
“BBC film of elephants in Kitum Cave”
Bowell, R. J., Redmond. I. & Warren, A. 1996. Formation of cave salts and utilization by elephants in the Mount Elgon region, Kenya. Environmental Geochemistry and Health, Geological Society, London, Special Publications, Volume 113.
Coutu, A. N. 2015. The elephant in the room: mapping the footsteps of historic elephants with big game hunting collections. World Archaeology, 47:3, 486-503, DOI: 10.1080/00438243.2015.1016184.
Jenner, A. 2017. Get Lost in Mega-Tunnels Dug by South American Megafauna. Discover Magazine, March 2017.
Kerfoot, C. & Powles, S. W. 2020. Chemukung: The Elephant, the Snare and the Log. Swara Magazine, July – September 2020.
Lundberg, J. & McFarlane, D. A. The Caves of Mt. Elgon National Park.
Lundberg, J. & McFarlane, D. A. 2003. Speleogenesis of the Mount Elgon elephant caves, Kenya.
Lundberg, J. & McFarlane, D. A. 2006. Speleogenesis of the Mount Elgon elephant caves, Kenya. Geological Society of America, Special Paper 404.
Lundberg, J. & McFarlane, D. A. 2007. Mount Elgon’s ‘elephant caves.’ Swara Magazine, October – December 2007.
Lundquist, C. F. & Varnedoe, W. W. Jr. 2005. Salt ingestion caves. International Journal of Speleology, 35 (1), 3-18.
Ndiema, E. K. & Powles, C. J. 2019. Cave Elephants and the Search for Our Early Human Ancestors on Mount Elgon.Swara Magazine, October – December 2019.
Redmond, I. 2016. For the Day of the Elephants, a Crash Course in Conservation. National Geographic Society Newsroom, August 2016.
Redmond, I. 2015. Return to Elgon, cave elephants prompt bonfire thoughts. Swara Magazine, July – September 2015.
Redmond, I. 1988. Underground elephants under attack. Swara Magazine, March – April 1988.
Redmond, I. & Shoshani, J. 1987. Mount Elgon’s Elephants Are in Peril. Elephant, 2 (3), 46-66.