AMBOSELI SCIENTISTS REVEAL IDENTITY OF SLAIN BULL IN TANZANIA:
URGENT CALL TO PROTECT AMBOSELI ELEPHANTS FROM TROPHY HUNTING
 
Amboseli National Park, Kenya (14 March 2024): As international outcry continues over the killing by sport hunters of a third bull elephant in the Enduimet area of Tanzania, researchers at the Amboseli Trust for Elephants (ATE) have today revealed the identity of the first victim.After obtaining a photo of the carcass of the first male killed, before it was burned, Cynthia Moss, Director, and Norah Njiraini, Assistant Director of the Amboseli Trust for Elephants, were able to positively identify the male as Gilgil, a well-known individual from the study population. Gilgil, the son of Golda, matriarch of the GB family, and fathered by huge, iconic bull Dionysus, was born in December 1987; at his death he was only 35 years old and just entering his reproductive years.
Moss and Njiraini were able to identify Gilgil because an elephant’s skin on its whole body is basically a giant fingerprint. With unique folds, creases, vein patterns, lumps and bumps, one elephant can easily be distinguished from another.