Today, June 17th 2025, UCF and other partners converge on the stunning Kidepo and wider Karamoja landscape in Uganda, and the rugged and hot terrain of neighbouring Turkana in north-western Kenya.
The team is here to satellite collar twenty elephants in a cross-border exercise designed to better understand how elephants use the landscape, their seasonal distributions and movement patterns. Also to support planning to minimise elephants and agriculture coming into conflict, which is already a serious concern.
Whilst elephant have always existed in this transboundary region, the changes in land use and the pressures on land for agriculture, now need improved planning to support the region’s opportunity to benefit from all users of the territory.
The consortium of partners working with the Uganda Wildlife Authority, the Kenya Wildlife Service and Kenya Wildlife Research and Training Institute, includes Uganda Conservation Foundation (UCF), the Northern Rangeland Trust, Wild Landscapes International, Save the Elephants, with vital background support from the incredible pilots and and their aircraft of Tropic Air and the Mara Elephant Project.
“This increased transboundary support to Kidepo and the surrounding community-owned and -managed conservancies is very exciting for the region as a whole and to all of us involved.” says Richard Muhabwe, Chief Warden of Kidepo Valley Conservation Area.
This activity is partly funded by the EU NaturAfrica programme, supporting the transboundary conservation initiative, with additional funding provided through generous support to Wild Landscape International.
Collaring elephants in the wild is no mean feat. With ground-based vehicles, helicopters and fixed wing aircraft all simultaneously in motion, working with elephants across a huge landscape, this is a complex, high-stakes operation that demands precise coordination at scale.
The team also includes three young wildlife vets, all being supported in their career development through UCF. One member of this vital team, Dr Singoma, who has himself responded to over 500 snared animal recoveries in Murchison Falls alone, and who earlier in the year completed a series of wildlife immobilization courses in Zimbabwe and Kenya, comments:
‘I’m living my dream – working on this project is an incredible experience, and I am learning more daily, endlessly. It isn’t every day that someone gets the opportunity to be involved in something like this operation. I can’t wait!’
Every move - from identifying suitable candidates for darting, then tranquilizing the particular elephants, the fitting of the collar while each huge creature is subdued, to post-procedure monitoring of each individual GPS-enabled transmitter on the Uganda Wildlife Authority’s country-wide ‘EarthRanger’ system (a state-of-the-art, digital information gathering network also financed and rolled out by UCF) - must be executed with split-second precision, to ensure the safety of the animals and the collaring team.
Also supporting the operation is our EarthRanger team, including GIS analysts, UWA and UCF human-wildlife conflict officers, project managers overseeing coordination, and the UCF communications team and their drivers capturing and sharing this story with you.
Stay tuned for further updates throughout the week as the collars go on!
