Monitoring of elephants on Mount Elgon, on the Uganda-Kenya border, shows a herd of elephants have crossed over to the Ugandan side, into areas they had largely abandoned since the 1970s.The Uganda Wildlife Authority says their return is a positive sign that efforts to restore degraded forest in Mount Elgon National Park is succeeding.Residents of Bukwo district, which overlaps with the national park, say elephants destroyed crops in 2025 but UWA rangers have so far prevented this in 2026.
According to monitoring with tracking collars by the Mount Elgon Foundation (MEF), last year at least 60 elephants crossed from Kenya into the Ugandan side of Mount Elgon, a vast volcanic mountain that straddles the border, returning to a part of their natural range where they’ve not been seen for over 40 years.
MEF funds community projects aimed at reducing forest degradation and raising awareness of environmental issues, as well as a team of 18 community scouts on the Kenyan side of the mountain, part of the East African Wild Life Society’s Mount Elgon Elephant Project. MEF’s chair, Chris Powles, told Mongabay that back in 2022, scouts tracked four elephants crossing the Suam river, which marks the border between the two countries.
