MEP

Double your impact for elephants on #WorldWildlifeDay. Thanks to a generous Mara Elephant Project donor, all donations through the end of the day today are matched up to $20,000. Support MEP to connect emerging technologies and HEC mitigation. By adding one additional drone to a ranger team you help them remain adaptable while responding to unpredictable human-elephant conflict (HEC) incidents to better safeguard the Mara’s wildlife and people. We aim to raise $40,000 to train 4 new drone pilots and deploy 4 new drones in 2026. Support MEP to protect elephants, connect open spaces and promote coexistence. Your $1 gift instantly becomes $2 to connect the dots for conservation on World Wildlife Day. Donate 🔗 in Bio

Double your impact for elephants for #WorldWildlifeDay. Thanks to a generous Mara Elephant Project donor, all donations February 24-March 3 are matched up to $20,000. Support MEP to connect emerging technologies and HEC mitigation. MEP’s ‘Delta’ ranger team patrols a critical corridor known for wildlife crossover into community farms. They work alongside fellow rangers from Olchorro, Enonkishu and Mbokishi conservancies day and night to mitigate human-elephant conflict (HEC). During a recent night operation, the MEP team deployed a thermal drone after detecting movement near community land. From above, the drone’s thermal imaging revealed a hippo inside a maize farm, creating a high-risk situation for both the community and the hippo. Like elephants, hippos are known “cropaholics,” often drawn to nutrient-rich crops like maize that are easier to access than natural forage. But when wildlife enters farmland under the cover of darkness, the risk of damage and danger escalates quickly. Using drone speakers, rangers alerted nearby community members to remain cautious, ensuring residents stayed safe while the teams coordinated their response on the ground. With real-time aerial intelligence guiding their movements, the MEP drone pilot safely moved the hippo out of the farm and back toward the river, preventing any more crop loss, reducing risk to the community and protecting the animal from harm. By combining advanced technology, coordinated conservancy partnerships and rapid response patrols, MEP continues to protect both wildlife and livelihoods, strengthening coexistence where land, people and wildlife intersect. You can help MEP train 4 new drone pilots in 2026 to increase our impact for the wildlife and communities in the Mara. Your $1 gift instantly becomes $2 to connect the dots for conservation on World Wildlife Day. Donate 🔗 in bio

Safari in Kenya while protecting elephants. Governors’ Camp Collection is raffling off a seven-night Kenyan safari experience with proceeds supporting Mara Elephant Project’s efforts to preserve critical elephant habitat. The seven-night safari worth $10,000 includes 3 nights at Loldia House located by historic Lake Naivasha and 4 nights at the classic Governors’ Camp along the banks of the Mara River. This experience also includes a hot-air balloon flight, generously donated by Governors’ Balloon Safaris, with all drinks, meals, accommodation and game drives included. You can enter to win this incredible experience offered by Governors’ Camp and support Mara Elephant Project in the preservation of the Loita Forest for the elephants that call it home. For these 600 elephants, the forest is a key link they use when navigating between ecosystems. To protect this vital elephant habitat, MEP brought together the community, government and stakeholders to declare that preservation and livelihoods can go hand-in-hand. MEP is providing payments to landowners who agree to protect their parcel of land and prevent deforestation, continuing to invest in our rangers operating in the forest and creating an elephant easement by securing critical forest land that guarantees its protection for generations. It’s $50 for one entry and $90 for two. 1 Entry pays a landowner for one month to protect their land against deforestation 2 Entries adds 5,000 square feet to the elephant easement 3+ Entries equips a MEP ranger with the skills and tools they need to defend against deforestation Running through March 31, you could be the lucky winner of this once in a lifetime experience. Enter to win, link in bio.

Double your impact for elephants for #WorldWildlifeDay. Thanks to a generous Mara Elephant Project donor, all donations February 24-March 3 are matched up to $20,000. Support MEP to connect emerging technologies and HEC mitigation. Our drones don’t just protect elephants; they help protect wildlife across the Mara. Last week, a 12-year-old female giraffe became entangled in wire fencing. The wire wrapped around her leg and neck, causing stress, affecting her feeding and tightening each time it caught on vegetation. After Mara North Conservancy rangers reported her condition, the Mara Elephant Project team deployed a drone to locate her so the @KenyaWildlifeService / @SheldrickTrust Mobile Vet Unit could safely prepare for the treatment. Unfortunately, she was inside a thick bush that was inaccessible by vehicle, and with giraffes, the treatment window after darting is extremely short due to their specialized cardiovascular system, so every second mattered. Using an audio cue from the drone’s speaker, the MEP drone pilot guided the vet team on foot to her exact location so once she was darted, they could jump in and administer her treatment. This operation is a reminder that MEP’s work with drones goes beyond elephants—supporting partners with rapid, precise interventions for wildlife across the Mara. You can help MEP expand our aerial fleet in 2026 by deploying 4 new drones. Your $1 gift instantly becomes $2 to connect the dots for conservation on World Wildlife Day. Donate 🔗 in Bio

Double your impact for elephants for #WorldWildlifeDay. Thanks to a generous Mara Elephant Project donor, all donations February 24-March 3 are matched up to $20,000. Support MEP to connect emerging technologies and HEC mitigation. By sending one ranger through our in-house drone training program, you provide them with skills that advance their career and our impact for the wildlife and communities in the Mara. We aim to raise $40,000 to train 4 new drone pilots and deploy 4 new drones in 2026. Support MEP to protect elephants, connect open spaces and promote coexistence. Your $1 gift instantly becomes $2 to connect the dots for conservation on World Wildlife Day. Donate 🔗 in Bio

At Mara Elephant Project, promoting coexistence means recognizing and understanding the unique nature of the Greater Mara Ecosystem. This mixed-use landscape, shared with wildlife, includes Maasai community settlements, livestock grazing areas and conservation zones that shift seasonally. In such spaces, conservation isn’t about separating people and wildlife, but understanding how both move across the land and managing that balance sustainably. For elephants and other wildlife, increasing grazing pressure (the consumption of vegetation by livestock that elephants also rely on) can reduce food availability, degrade habitats and restrict movement corridors. As natural resources become limited, elephants may move closer to farms and settlements, increasing the risk of human-elephant conflict. Understanding where and when grazing pressure builds is therefore critical for proactive conservation. CattleMapper, developed by MEP and EyeClimate, makes this invisible pressure visible. Leveraging emerging technology to analyze drone imagery, it maps livestock numbers, boma locations (livestock enclosures) and grazing patterns quickly and efficiently and all through an easy-to-use platform with just a click. By tracking this data over time, we can manage grazing pressure, identify emerging conflict zones and protect critical elephant habitats—supporting Maasai livelihoods and the ecosystems they depend on. Better data. Better decisions. Promoting coexistence.

Double your impact for elephants for #WorldWildlifeDay. Thanks to a generous Mara Elephant Project donor, all donations February 24-March 3 are matched up to $20,000. Support MEP to connect emerging technologies and HEC mitigation. Drones are a critical part of our human-elephant conflict mitigation capabilities and strategy. Since elephants are apprehensive of the buzzing sound they make, drones have proven to be incredibly effective in human-elephant conflict (HEC) mitigation. In this instance, MEP’s ‘Golf’ ranger team answered a call from a nearby community member reporting that there were four elephants in their maize farm in Engos. To keep the situation from escalating, the team deployed a drone to guide the bulls back to safety. From start to finish, the operation took less than 30 minutes. This is why emerging technology tools like drones are so important to our work. They allow our rangers to respond to HEC anywhere and anytime in a safe, effective and timely manner. You can help MEP expand our aerial fleet in 2026 by deploying 4 new drones. Your $1 gift instantly becomes $2 to connect the dots for conservation on World Wildlife Day. Donate 🔗 in Bio

Double your impact for elephants for #WorldWildlifeDay. Thanks to a generous Mara Elephant Project donor, all donations February 24-March 3 are matched up to $20,000. Support MEP to connect emerging technologies and HEC mitigation. MEP led a drone refresher training for nine rangers from the Mara Conservancy, focusing on practical, field-ready skills to monitor these endangered species more effectively. The training highlighted the use of the Matrice 4T thermal drone, one of three new drones the rangers will soon deploy. With thermal imaging and advanced aerial capabilities, these drones allow rangers to track rhinos across rugged terrain, even at night, giving them faster response times and sharper insights into wildlife movement. Led by MEP Drone Pilot Felix Yiaile and supported by Expert Drones Africa, the sessions combined hands-on flying, safety protocols, and tactical strategies for wildlife protection. By merging technology with skilled on-the-ground teams, MEP is empowering rangers to protect rhinos—and other key species—more effectively than ever before. You can help MEP train 4 new drone pilots in 2026 to increase our impact for the wildlife and communities in the Mara. Your $1 gift instantly becomes $2 to connect the dots for conservation on World Wildlife Day. You can help MEP expand our aerial fleet in 2026 by deploying 4 new drones. Your $1 gift instantly becomes $2 to connect the dots for conservation on World Wildlife Day. Donate 🔗 in Bio

Double your impact for elephants for #WorldWildlifeDay. Thanks to a generous Mara Elephant Project donor, all donations February 24-March 3 are matched up to $20,000. Join MEP to connect the dots for conservation. By connecting emerging technologies and human-elephant conflict (HEC) mitigation, tools like drones are now deployed to mitigate more than 60% of the HEC incidents MEP responds to and they have increased not only the ranger’s effectiveness, but also their safety. We aim to raise $40,000 to train 4 new drone pilots and deploy 4 new drones in 2026. By sending one ranger through our in-house drone training program, you provide them with skills that advance their career and our impact for the wildlife and communities in the Mara. By adding one additional drone to a ranger team you help them remain adaptable while responding to unpredictable HEC incidents to better safeguard the Mara’s wildlife and people. Support MEP to protect elephants, connect open spaces and promote coexistence. Your $1 gift instantly becomes $2 to connect the dots for conservation on World Wildlife Day. Donate 🔗 in Bio

Welcome back to #MEPMissionMinute, the series that breaks down how Mara Elephant Project uses the MEP approach to Monitor, Evaluate, and Protect elephants and their habitats across the Mara. This month, we move into the second pillar: EVALUATE, again following collared elephant Edwin as our guide. Monitoring gives us the raw movement data, but evaluation is where that information becomes strategy. By analyzing Edwin’s tracks over time, our data and reporting team creates heat maps that show exactly where he spends the most time and, when analyzed alongside our landscape map, MEP and our government partners can determine where human-elephant conflict (HEC) is most likely to occur and respond appropriately. We may establish geofences, invisible boundaries that exist only in our tracking system, so that when Edwin nears a geofence, the MEP operations room receives an alert that allows them to assess whether intervention is necessary. For Edwin, his heat map indicates that he frequently moves into the Aitong area, where the likelihood of crop-raiding is high. The evaluation of these movements led to the decision to deploy a ranger team in this area and helps them determine which tools are the most effective to respond when HEC occurs. Evaluation turns movement into foresight. It tells us where to focus patrols, when to deploy drones and how to utilize resources for maximum impact. This is the second step in the MEP approach: EVALUATE. Stay tuned for the next Mission Minute, where we follow Edwin into the third and final pillar of the MEP approach.

At the heart of every elephant family is a powerful bond that nurtures the future generation. Raising the youngest members of the herd in a world shaped by care, guidance and unwavering support, these close-knit family structures are essential to an elephant’s survival. Protecting them is at the core of Mara Elephant Project’s conservation work. By safeguarding elephants and their habitats, we help ensure future generations of elephants can grow, learn and thrive in the wild.

Mara Elephant Project rangers responded after collared elephant Fitz was detected moving toward farms bordering the forest where he and his herd of 70 reside. Normally, when his GPS collar shows him approaching farmland, it also indicates that the rest of the herd is close behind. In this instance, rangers deployed a thermal drone to guide the elephants away from the farms and back to the forest. Rapid response and careful monitoring make coexistence possible for Fitz, his herd, and the people who share this landscape.

Welcome back to #FridaysWithFred! Fred is a very special elephant for many reasons, and he certainly has his own way of doing things. From the way he scratches his ears with his trunk, to the way he utilizes mud to protect his skin, to his habit of walking straight through trees instead of around them, these are all behaviors we see in many elephants, but each elephant has their own rhythm, personalities and preferences. Elephants like Fred don’t just shape landscapes, their movements pave their own distinct pathways. You could say it’s a bit like us. We might share similar routines and habits, but we each do them in our own very specific, very recognizable way. And Fred, as always, does it the Fred way.

Mara Elephant Project’s Training of Trainers (TOT) program supported by Saruni Basecamp Foundation equips experienced rangers with the instruction, structure and confidence to return to their organizations and train their own teams. It is about standardizing skills, strengthening operations and ensuring knowledge moves across the Mara. The first cohort of 2026 has just arrived at MEP HQ, bringing together rangers from 17 conservancies and organizations throughout the Mara for three weeks of intensive, field focused work. The emphasis is not only on what is taught, but how it is taught. Sessions are run using clear, repeatable methods so each participant can go back, deliver the same training and maintain the same standard within their own unit. Stay tuned for the next 2 installments of #ToTThursday to get an in depth look at the participants and practices that build capable rangers and more coordinated efforts across the landscape.

Mara Elephant Project’s “Bravo” ranger team responded to a call from the community after a herd of elephants moved close to settlements in Emurua Dikirr, an area bordering Ol Kinyei Conservancy. This area was once an elephant corridor, but landscape changes have now blocked traditional movement routes, pushing elephants closer to community land. This is why working closely with the communities who call us is essential—to mitigate and de-escalate potential conflict involving people, cattle grazing, and elephants, while continuing to promote coexistence. Deploying their drone, the team successfully guided the herd away from the settlement and back to safety.