Project Year: 2017
Ruaha-Rungwa is one of the most important elephant areas of East Africa, having harbored over 35,000 African savanna elephants only ten years ago. However, this population has been one of the hardest hit by the current poaching crisis and now stands at about 12,000 individuals with virtually no elephants of over 40 years-of- age left.
Wildlife Canada Society contracted the Tanzania Elephant Program (STEP) to provide aerial support for elephant protection in Ruaha-Rungwa in 2014. The function was to implement a systematic program of elephant transects across the vast roadless areas of this wilderness to supplement ground-based monitoring. The program worked well and provided early warning locations of poachers so they could be intercepted.
A STEP air patrol team in Tanzania
