They have unquestionably improved the biodiversity of the Park, changing it from desolate sterile scrub thicket where viewing was difficult and the tourist appeal so low that the Colonial Government almost abandoned the Park in the sixties, to a beautiful mosaic of grassland and Acacia open woodland that now boasts more tourists and revenue that any of the other Parks, Nairobi, Nakuru and Amboseli included. Not only is it here that the Northern and Southern races of fauna meet but species that were absent when the Park was first created have again appeared. I speak of Topi, Oribi, Sable, Abbots duiker and even Brown Hyaena, never before reported in East Africa. When the elephants' work was done, we waited anxiously to see what would happen. It was then that we witnessed Nature's way of controlling numbers in a one off event that only need ever happen once in an elephant's lifetime, and which by removing specific female age groups from the entire population, puts the population into the long-term decline necessary to relieve the pressure on the vegetation, and allow regeneration, regrowth and renewal.
Many people feel that to allow elephants to die of malnutrition is cruel and inhumane.
But we must remember that malnutrition is a natural end for an elephant - the way it would die in old age once the last set of molars is worn. Malnutrition is not the same as starvation, because the stomach is not empty. When they are too weak to get up, they die surrounded by their loved ones, just as we humans would choose to die. Surely this is preferable to dying in mindless terror amidst a hail of gunfire, calves getting trampled in the ensuing mayhem, remembering also that elephants communicate long range with infrasound, so the trauma is transmitted to others many miles away. Nor is it an accident that Nature has determined that female elephants are bonded strongly into female family units for life, led by the oldest cow in the family, who is the Matriarch responsible for making all the decisions.