April 22nd is the 55th Anniversary of Earth Day! Now we may be biased (being Earthlings and all), but we think our planet is something worth celebrating and protecting! The theme for this year’s Earth Day is “Our Power, Our Planet” and this embodies IEF’s founding philosophy of the last 25 years that everyone can make a difference and be good stewards of our wild things and wild places. It starts with you!

Aerial Surveillance of Big Tuskers Helping Rhinos

Last year, the IEF-supported Big Tusker Project in Tsavo, Kenya clocked in 871 hours of aerial surveillance flights covering 114,373 kilometers. That’s a lot of work protecting the Big Tuskers, Emerging Tuskers, and Iconic Cow Tuskers across the Tsavo Conservation Area. Coordinating with ground teams and the Kenya Wildlife Service, IEF’s partners at Tsavo Trust are making a tangible difference in the survival of these incredible animals. Even though 34 elephants died in 2024, none of them were from poaching. In a world where poachers and wildlife criminals are seemingly lurking around every corner, that is a JUMBO accomplishment!

Aerial surveillance is benefitting other species as well. Prompted by a concerning decline in rhino sightings, our partners took action. In November, the teams went to Tsavo West National Park and immobilized 28 black rhino to fit them with state-of-the-art tracking devices. During this process the aerial unit covered 14,108 kilometers and clocked 123 hours of flying time to find and identify the rhinos, support the team on the ground, and provide protection.

This provides improved monitoring and sighting rates for this incredible species, and therefore increased security. While elephants are our focus, stories like this remind us that protecting elephants protects all species who share their habitat.

IEF is proud to have dedicated partners like the Tsavo Trust who never hesitate to take action for elephants and wildlife. That’s one of the many reasons we chose them as a project to visit during our Kenyan Safari this November. You can see this project in action, meet these individuals, and get exclusive access seeing conservation in action when you sign up for our once-in-a-lifetime trip.

Close Encounters of the Endangered Kind

Episode 9: Episode 11: A Dam for Sand?

By Tricia Berry

We spent our last day in Tsavo traveling to see the sand dam Joe and I funded to help provide water for elephants and the other wild animals in the area. A sand dam is a simple, low-cost, and low-maintenance rainwater harvesting system consisting of a reinforced concrete wall built across a seasonal sandy river with a hard rock bottom.

When it rains, the dam captures sand-laden water behind it. As the water on top of the sand evaporates, a reservoir of clean water lies beneath the sand. This can be accessed by elephants through digging with their legs, trunks and…Continue Reading the Adventure Here.

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