Turner

Turner was born in August 1982 to Tara, in her late years a matriarch of the so-called TC family in Amboseli, Kenya. Following a few years of unstable weather and shortages of food, it was 1984 that proved to be a terrible year for the entire T family, including only 2 year old Turner. Serious drought developed, and with the Maasai cattle and the elephants competing for very little food, there was acute elephant-human conflict. Many elephants were speared that year, died from draught, lack of food, poisoning from eating garbage and illness.

After the devastating deaths of 1984, there was a period of relative tranquility for the Amboseli elephants. There were no droughts; the rains were higher than average, and over the next few years rainfall was fairly well spread out with the result that there were no severe dry seasons, which helped Turner to recover and grow to be a healthy strong bull. In the relative peace of Amboseli, Turner and his family went about their lives: feeding, drinking, mudwallowing, dusting, socializing, migrating, mating, giving birth.

Photo copyright: Save the elephants