“If there were a Queen of Elephants, it would surely have been her…”

 

Elephants are the largest existing land animals of the Elephantidae family. But despite their incredible size, they are nothing different than gentle giants. And these gentle giants are hunted systematically by poachers, for their tusks. Fiona Maisels (among others) conducted a research and the results are just sad. Mainly due to human actions, elephant population has taken a dive. The population, in the 9-year-span between 2002 and 2011 has dropped 62%!

There is one elephant, though, who managed to survive in the wilderness for more than 60 years. She is known as “The Elephant Queen”.

The Tsavo Trust and the Kenya Wildlife Service have partnered up with Will Burrard-Lucas. A British photographer who captured in Kenya a series of photographs for his upcoming book. In that photo series, we discovered pictures of the renowned “Elephant Queen” of Kenya. And what makes it even more dramatic and sorrowful, is the fact that the gentle giantess dies during the photographer’s visit to that area.

It was a time of drought so the younger and older animals struggled to survive. One of the animals that passed, was the “Elephant Queen”.

“F_MU1 (codename for the “Elephant Queen”) was skinny and old but she strode forward with stately grace. Her tusks were so long that they scraped the ground in front of her,” the photographer described. “She was like a relic from a bygone era… If there were a Queen of Elephants, it would surely have been her…”