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<\/a> (Beth Clifton collage)<\/strong><\/em><\/div>\n NAIROBI,\u00a0 Kenya\u2013\u2013<\/strong>Save the Elephants founder Iain Douglas-Hamilton,\u00a0 83,\u00a0 died on December 8,\u00a0 2025 at his home in Nairobi,\u00a0 Kenya.<\/p>\n Excellence in all things was expected of him from birth on August 16,\u00a0 1942 in Dorset,\u00a0 England,\u00a0\u00a0 as the younger of two sons of Lord David Douglas-Hamilton and Ann Prunella Stack.<\/p>\n <\/a> Lord David Douglas-Hamilton 1912-1944.<\/strong><\/em> Lord David Douglas-Hamilton (1912-1944,\u00a0 a 1934 Empire Games bronze medalist as a heavyweight boxer,\u00a0 was among four brothers who had each achieved the rank of squadron leader in the Royal Air Force when the United Kingdom entered World War II on September 3,\u00a0 1939.<\/p>\n Previously a Spitfire fighter pilot in the North African and Mediterranean theatres,\u00a0 Lord David Douglas-Hamilton was shot down and killed after surviving nearly five years in combat on August 2,\u00a0 1944,\u00a0 while trying to limp a badly damaged Mosquito reconnaissance bomber back from the French coast to RAF Benson,\u00a0 near Wallingford,\u00a0 South Oxfordshire.<\/p>\n Iain Douglas-Hamilton was not quite two years old.<\/p>\n <\/a> Prunella Stack.\u00a0 (Beth Clifton collage)<\/strong><\/em><\/div>\n His mother,\u00a0 Ann Prunella Stack (1914-2010),\u00a0 born in India,\u00a0 headed the Women\u2019s League of Health & Beauty,\u00a0 founded by her mother Mary in 1930 but left to her daughter,\u00a0 then only 16,\u00a0 to manage after her death a year later.<\/p>\n Making a success of it, helping to introduce yoga to Britain, \u00a0Ann Prunella Stack met Lord David Douglas-Hamilton at the opening of a swimming pool at a girls\u2019 school in Dorset in 1937.\u00a0 They were married in October 1938.<\/p>\n Involved throughout her life in promoting physical fitness for women,\u00a0 Ann Prunella Stack may be best remembered for bringing a multi-racial exercise team to perform at the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II in 1953,\u00a0 against \u201cauthority requirements.\u201d<\/p>\n Ann Prunella Stack had by then remarried,\u00a0 in July 1950,\u00a0 to surgeon Alfred \u201cAlly\u201d Albers,\u00a0 with whom she had a close relationship for about a year before meeting Lord David Douglas-Hamilton.<\/p>\n Ann Prunella Stack and \u201cAlly\u201d Albers were married only nine months when he fell to his death while the two of them were climbing Table Mountain,\u00a0 overlooking Cape Town,\u00a0 South Africa.<\/p>\n <\/a> (Beth Clifton collage)<\/strong><\/em><\/div>\n \u201cIain grew up in England and Scotland and attended the same boarding school, Gordonstoun, \u00a0that King Charles III did,\u201d\u00a0 recalled New York Times<\/em> obituarist Jeffrey Gettleman,\u00a0 who had been a longtime acquaintance of Iain Douglas-Hamilton while working as a foreign correspondent.<\/p>\n While his brother,\u00a0 Diarmaid Douglas-Hamilton,\u00a0 two years the elder (1940-2023),\u00a0 became an\u00a0astrophysicist\u00a0at\u00a0Harvard University,\u00a0 Iain Douglas-Hamilton \u201ctook up zoology at the University of Oxford, \u00a0thinking he would study lions,\u201d\u00a0 Gettleman recalled.<\/p>\n <\/a> (Beth Clifton collage)<\/strong><\/em><\/div>\n \u201cHis efforts to save the African elephant began in 1965,\u201d wrote Brian Jackman for The Guardian<\/em>, \u00a0as another old friend,\u00a0 \u201cwhen, \u00a0as an Oxford zoology graduate who had also just received his pilot\u2019s license, \u00a0he flew his Piper Pacer bush plane from Nairobi down to Tanzania\u2019s pocket-sized Lake Manyara national park.<\/p>\n \u201cThe challenge he had accepted at the age of 23 was how to solve the problem of 450 elephants confined in a space too small to support them.<\/p>\n \u201cFor five years,\u201d\u00a0 Jackman continued,\u00a0 \u201chaving built a camp in an area renowned for its tree-climbing lions, \u00a0he lived among Manyara\u2019s elephants, \u00a0first teaching himself to recognize them as individuals in order to make the first systematic study of their behavior in the wild.<\/p>\n <\/a> Charging rhino.<\/strong><\/em> \u201cOften,\u201d\u00a0 Jackman said, \u00a0\u201che was forced to climb trees to avoid being killed by angry elephants, \u00a0such as the formidable matriarch he called Boadicea, \u00a0and on three occasions his Land Rover was skewered by their tusks. \u00a0But eventually they came to accept him, \u00a0while remaining truly wild.\u201d<\/p>\n The lions and elephants were not the only threats Iain Douglas-Hamiliton dodged at Lake Manyara.<\/p>\n Early in his work there,\u00a0 Iain Douglas-Hamilton found himself trying to outrun a charging rhinoceros.<\/p>\n \u201cTwisting and dodging round the bushes,\u00a0 I could not shake it off,\u201d\u00a0 Iain Douglas-Hamilton later wrote.\u00a0 \u201cEvery time I looked around it was within a few feet and closing in. \u00a0It was incredible.<\/p>\n \u201cBushes were tearing at my clothes as I searched for a way through. \u00a0I must have covered fifty yards when they formed a blank wall. \u00a0A strap snapped on my sandals and I pitched headlong at high speed on my face. \u00a0As I fell, \u00a0I twisted and saw a huge dark shape with its long sharp horn bearing down over me.<\/p>\n \u201cThe thought flashed through my mind that in the next instant I would be killed or speared. \u00a0A split second of blackness, \u00a0a shattering blow, \u00a0the flash of the head and flank of a second rhino streaking past me, \u00a0and I was lying there agonizingly winded, \u00a0but deliriously happy to be alive.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/a> (Beth Clifton photo\/collage)<\/strong><\/em><\/div>\n At Lake Manyara,\u00a0 Gettleman recounted,\u00a0 Iain Douglas-Hamilton \u201cbegan building an extensive dossier on every elephant he encountered, \u00a0taking photos of their faces, \u00a0tracing their lineages and mapping their territory.<\/p>\n \u201cAt first, \u00a0he assigned them numbers. \u00a0But as he studied the herds more closely, \u00a0learning to recognize individuals by the distinctive shape of their ears, \u00a0he gave each one a name. \u00a0Soon, \u00a0he was on a first-name basis with hundreds of elephants.\u201d<\/p>\n Iain Douglas-Hamilton soon became acquainted with Jane Goodall,\u00a0 six years older,\u00a0 who had begun her chimpanzee research about five years earlier in Gombe National Park,\u00a0 600 miles west on the far side of Tanzania.<\/p>\n (See <\/em><\/strong>Jane Goodall, 91, defied scientific & ecological convention all her life<\/em><\/strong><\/a>.)<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n <\/a> (Beth Clifton collage)<\/strong><\/em><\/div>\n \u201cImmediately,\u201d\u00a0 Goodall testified in A Life Among Elephants<\/em>,\u00a0 a 2024 documentary about Iain Douglas-Hamilton, \u00a0\u201cwe talked as people who understood who animals are,\u201d she said in the documentary. \u201cThere\u2019s no question that Iain\u2019s legacy will last forever. It was he who brought the elephant as a sentient being to the attention of the world.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/a> Richard Leakey & Cynthia Moss.<\/strong><\/em> About two years after arriving in Tanzania, \u00a0in 1967, \u00a0Iain Douglas-Hamilton met another kindred spirit,\u00a0 Cynthia Moss.<\/p>\n Moss,\u00a0 27,\u00a0 two years older than Iain Douglas-Hamilton,\u00a0 had grown up in her father\u2019s small-town newspaper publishing business and was then on leave from her reporting job at Newsweek<\/em> to tour Africa with her college friend Penny Naylor,\u00a0 an artist who had moved to Africa.<\/p>\n Becoming acquainted with Iain Douglas-Hamilton while visiting Lake Manyara,\u00a0 \u00a0Moss quit her Newsweek job in 1968 to become his research assistant.<\/p>\n Together they worked on elephant identification,\u00a0 as Moss described in her first book\u00a0Portraits in the Wild<\/em> (1975).<\/p>\n Ian Douglas-Hamilton returned to England in the fall of 1968, \u00a0but Moss remained in Africa,\u00a0 working as a journalist and as a veterinary assistant in Nairobi,\u00a0 Kenya.<\/p>\n Founding the Amboseli Elephant Research Project at Amboseli National Park in Kenya in 1972,\u00a0 Moss,\u00a0 now 85,\u00a0 has continued to study the Amboseli herd of about 1,500 elephants ever since.<\/p>\n <\/a> Iain and Prunella Douglas-Hamilton.<\/strong><\/em> Iain Douglas-Hamilton returned to Africa,\u00a0 introducing the use of radio collars to track elephants in 1969.<\/p>\n Also in 1969,\u00a0 wrote Gettleman,\u00a0 \u201che dropped in at a party in Nairobi and met Oria Rocco, \u00a0an Italian photographer born in Kenya.\u201d<\/p>\n Her family had a ranch near Lake Naivasha,\u00a0 Kenya.<\/p>\n Iain Douglas-Hamilton \u201cwas quite taken by me,\u00a0 so we started dancing, but he wasn\u2019t a very good dancer,\u201d she remembered,\u00a0 according to Gettleman.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd then I said, \u00a0\u2018Well, what are you doing here?\u2019 \u00a0And he said, \u00a0\u2018Well, I do elephants.\u2019 \u2018You do elephants? \u00a0What does that mean?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Rocco recalled that as \u201cThe first time I\u2019d met somebody who was actually studying elephants and not shooting elephants.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThey soon had two daughters,\u201d\u00a0 Gettleman said, \u00a0\u201cwhom they gave Swahili names: \u00a0Saba, which means seven, \u00a0and Dudu, which means bug.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/a> Iain Douglas-Hamilton with daughter Saba.<\/strong><\/em> Added Jackman,\u00a0 \u201cThe story of their early years together, \u00a0Among the Elephants<\/em> (1975), \u00a0became a bestseller, \u00a0illustrated by Oria\u2019s superb photographs \u2013 including a picture of her introducing Saba as a babe in arms to a wild cow elephant and her calf.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI first met Iain in the late 1970s,\u201d\u00a0 Jackman wrote.\u00a0 \u00a0\u201cAt his insistence I went to Tsavo in 1988 to report for the Sunday Times<\/em> on what became known as the ivory wars. \u00a0By then, the poaching scourge had already spread far beyond Kenya, reaching into every corner of the elephants\u2019 range and reducing their numbers from 1.3 million to 600,000 in a decade.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cMake no mistake,\u201d\u00a0 Iain Douglas-Hamilton warned. \u00a0\u201cWhat we are witnessing is the greatest animal tragedy of this century.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cTo prove his point,\u201d\u00a0 Jackman continued,\u00a0 Iain Douglas-Hamilton \u201chad begun carrying out pan-African aerial surveys that revealed the extent of the crisis for the first time.<\/p>\n <\/a> (Beth Clifton collage)<\/strong><\/em><\/div>\n \u201cAs poaching surged in the late 1970s,\u201d\u00a0 Gettleman confirmed,\u00a0 Iain Douglas-Hamilton \u201cshifted from research to defense. \u00a0What the world was witnessing, \u00a0he said, \u00a0was \u2018an elephant holocaust.\u2019 \u00a0He went to Uganda, \u00a0as it was emerging from a war [that followed the 1979 overthrow of the dictator Idi Amin (1928-2003)], \u00a0to muster a force that would guard the country\u2019s elephant population,\u201d\u00a0 which had nearly been exterminated by poachers,\u00a0 some of them working with Idi Amin.<\/p>\n Resumed Jackman,\u00a0 \u201cIn 1980 Iain Douglas-Hamilton was made honorary chief warden in Uganda, \u00a0where he introduced air and ground patrols against Sudanese poachers who sometimes shot at his plane, \u00a0and in 1988 he was awarded the Order of the Golden Ark by Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands for alerting the world to the sheer scale of the elephant killing. \u00a0He was appointed Commander of the British Empire,\u201d\u00a0 a form of knighthood,\u00a0 \u201cin 2015.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/a> Then-Kenyan president Daniel arap Moi burns a stock of confiscated ivory in 1989.<\/strong><\/em><\/div>\n Iain Douglas-Hamilton and then-Kenya Wildlife Service director Richard Leakey were widely credited with persuading Daniel arap Moi (1924-2020) to burn a stockpile of 12 tons of ivory confiscated from poachers in Nairobi National Park.\u00a0 The bonfire helped to convince the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species [CITES] to prohibit international ivory sales later that year.<\/p>\n (See <\/em><\/strong>Richard Leakey, 77, saved elephants & found missing links to veg past<\/em><\/strong><\/a>.)<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n <\/a> Daniel Stiles & Esmond Bradley Martin Jr.<\/strong><\/em> \u201cI met Iain Douglas-Hamilton in the 1980s in Nairobi through Esmond Bradley Martin,\u201d\u00a0 emailed Daniel Stiles to ANIMALS 24-7<\/strong>,\u00a0 as a longtime friend and colleague of both Douglas-Hamilton and Martin.<\/p>\n (See <\/em><\/strong>Who killed ivory trade investigator Esmond Martin, why?<\/em><\/strong><\/a>)<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cThey lived near each other in Langata,\u201d\u00a0 a Nairobi suburb,\u00a0 Stiles recalled,\u00a0 \u201cand Esmond and I walked over to visit on occasion when I called on the Martins.<\/p>\n \u201cThis was long before I thought I would ever work in wildlife conservation,\u201d\u00a0 Stiles specified.<\/p>\n <\/a> Iain Douglas Hamilton (left), Daniel Stiles (right).<\/strong><\/em> \u201cIain was always busy working on some project, \u00a0which he would show great enthusiasm for. \u00a0I came to know Iain much better after 1999, \u00a0when I began working with Esmond carrying out regional ivory market surveys, \u00a0organized and funded largely by Save the Elephants,\u201d\u00a0 founded by Iain Douglas-Hamilton in 1993.<\/p>\n \u201cIain was always supportive and encouraging of our work,\u201d\u00a0 Stiles said.<\/p>\n But meanwhile,\u00a0 on this particular day,\u00a0 \u201cEsmond and I walked over to the Douglas-Hamilton house, \u00a0which contained the Save the Elephants office, \u00a0to find Iain marveling at a map of collared elephant movements, tracked by satellite. \u00a0He was so excited by the elephant secrets that this new technology,\u00a0 GPS, \u00a0could unveil.<\/p>\n \u201cIain pioneered many things,\u201d\u00a0 Stiles added,\u00a0 \u201cwhich we all take for granted today. \u00a0This remarkable man will be sorely missed. \u00a0I consider it a great privilege to have known, \u00a0learned from, \u00a0and worked with him.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/a> (Beth Clifton collage)<\/strong><\/em><\/div>\n \u201cIain was family to the Wildlife Conservation Network,\u201d\u00a0 WCN chief executive officer Jean-Ga\u00ebl Collomb recalled.\u00a0 \u201cHe was at our first Wildlife Conservation Expo in 2002, \u00a0and Save the Elephants was one of our founding partners.<\/p>\n \u201cIain remained deeply engaged over the past 23 years,\u201d\u00a0 Collomb said.\u00a0 \u201cTogether, \u00a0we co-founded the Elephant Crisis Fund in 2013, \u00a0supporting more than 120 partners across 44 countries. Iain was a true collaborator who helped shape the Wildlife Conservation Network into what we are today.\u00a0 His influence touched every corner of our conservation community.\u201d<\/p>\n Circa 2005,\u00a0 Iain Douglas-Hamilton learned how much about elephants could be discovered from a single tail hair.<\/p>\n <\/a> (Beth Clifton photo)<\/strong><\/em><\/div>\n Reported Dagi Kimani for The East African<\/em> of Nairobi,\u00a0 on\u00a0January 17, 2006,\u00a0 \u201cBritish and American researchers tracked a herd of seven elephants by fitting them with GPS satellite tags as they wandered through the Samburu National Reserve.<\/p>\n \u201cTo establish what and where the elephants ate, \u00a0researchers involved in the study analyzed the levels of \u2018stable isotopes\u2019 of carbon and nitrogen in the elephants\u2019 tail hair. \u00a0Each plant has its peculiar levels of stable isotopes\u2013\u2013which do not decay radioactively over a short time\u2013\u2013and establishing their levels in an animal. can tell scientists what the animal has been feeding on.<\/p>\n \u201cAccording to the study\u2019s findings, \u00a0published in the January 3,\u00a0 2006 online edition of the American journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences<\/em>,\u201d\u00a0 Kimani summarized,\u00a0 \u201cthe tail hair of six of the elephants indicated that they spent most of their time in the arid lowlands of Samburu eating trees and shrubs. \u00a0During wetter seasons, they switched to grass.<\/p>\n \u201cHowever, \u00a0the movements of a seventh elephant \u2013 a big male \u2013 were found to be significantly different. \u00a0This elephant spent rainy seasons in lowland Samburu, \u00a0but then trekked 40 kilometers to <\/a> (Beth Clifton collage)<\/strong><\/em><\/div>\n The study produced the further insight,\u00a0 Louisa Cheung reported for BBC News<\/em> on July 29,\u00a0 2006,\u00a0 that\u00a0 \u201cAfrican elephants hate climbing hills because it is too costly in terms of energy.\u201d<\/p>\n Explained Iain Douglas-Hamilton,\u00a0 \u201cAt an incline of five degrees, \u00a0there were approximately half the number of [elephants] recorded per square kilometer as there were at a zero-degree incline.\u201d<\/p>\n This appeared to be because a four-ton elephant \u201cwould need an extra 25,000 calories of energy for every vertical meter climbed\u2013\u2013about 2,500% of the cost of level walking.<\/p>\n \u201cThis means the elephants would need to boost their calorie consumption to walk uphill \u2013\u2013requiring them to find much more food.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/a> (Beth Clifton collage)<\/strong><\/em><\/div>\n Iain Douglas-Hamilton may be best known,\u00a0 however,\u00a0 for his findings pertaining to elephants\u2019 empathy toward each other and awareness of death,\u00a0 also reported in 2006,\u00a0 in the journal Applied Animal Behaviour Science.<\/em><\/p>\n Iain Douglas-Hamilton and fellow scientists described how a dying elephant they named Eleanor \u201cwas first assisted by an unrelated matriarch from another family,\u201d\u00a0 summarized Agence France-Presse.<\/p>\n \u201cAt one point the helper, \u00a0called Grace, \u00a0was observed lifting the collapsed animal to her feet using her tusks. \u00a0When Eleanor fell again, \u00a0Grace tried again to lift her up\u2013\u2013this time without success.<\/p>\n \u201cEleanor died where she fell,\u201d\u00a0 continued Agence France-Presse,\u00a0 \u201cand was subsequently visited by elephants not only from her own family, \u00a0but from four other families as well.<\/p>\n \u201cAll the animals showed a distinct interest in the body, \u00a0the scientists discovered, \u00a0sniffing it with their trunks, \u00a0hovering a foot over it, \u00a0\u00a0or nudging it with their tusks.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThis behavior in an animal species can be compared to human behavior, \u00a0and indicates that such feelings as compassion may not be restricted to our species alone,\u201d\u00a0 Iain Douglas-Hamilton said.<\/p>\n <\/a> (Beth Clifton photo collage)<\/strong><\/em><\/div>\n Just at the peak of public and scientific recognition of his work,\u00a0 Iain Douglas-Hamilton and Save the Elephants were in May 2007 expelled from their headquarters in Samburu National Reserve.<\/p>\n \u201cThe Daily Telegraph<\/em> reported last month,\u00a0 explained Telegraph<\/em> correspondent Mike Pflanz, \u00a0\u201cthat four hotels planned for Samburu and Buffalo Springs national reserves threatened ancient elephant trails and could damage the parks\u2019 fragile ecosystems.<\/p>\n \u201cTwo days after the story was published, \u00a0the local council leaders, \u00a0who had rubber-stamped the new construction, \u00a0overriding environmentalists\u2019 concerns, \u00a0ordered Save the Elephants out of Samburu National Reserve.<\/p>\n \u201cIain Douglas-Hamilton, \u00a0the founder of the British-registered charity [Save the Elephants] which raised the alarm, \u00a0was accused of \u2018publishing malicious reports.\u2019\u00a0 He said his \u2018quarrel was purely scientific.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n <\/a> (Beth Clifton photo)<\/strong><\/em><\/div>\n Said Iain Douglas-Hamilton,\u00a0 \u00a0\u201cThere have simply not been enough studies to determine the environmental and ecological impact of this construction on the elephants\u2019 habitat.\u201d<\/p>\n The local council rejected his appeal of the eviction order,\u00a0 obliging the Douglas-Hamiltons and Save the Elephants to relocate,\u00a0 for a time,\u00a0 back to the Douglas-Hamilton home in Langata and property they owned at Lake Naivasha.<\/p>\n Later they were able to resume work at Samburu \u201cat Elephant Watch Camp, \u00a0his family\u2019s game lodge,\u201d\u00a0 Gettleman wrote.<\/p>\n Meanwhile,\u00a0 remembered Jackman,\u00a0 \u201cIain almost came to grief at Samburu when he was charged by a cow elephant who then tried to impale him as he lay on the ground. \u00a0Somehow he emerged unscathed, \u00a0with little damage except for a broken pair of spectacles.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/a> Richard Leakey & elephant.<\/strong><\/em> \u201cIn September 2009, \u00a0Iain Douglas-Hamilton worked to rescue a rare herd of desert elephants in northern Kenya and Mali, \u00a0threatened from one of the worst droughts in nearly a dozen years.\u00a0 In the spring of 2010, \u00a0a devastating flood destroyed the Save the Elephants camp,\u00a0 including staff tents, computers,\u00a0 and years of field research notes,\u201d\u00a0 wrote publicist Linda Knouse,\u00a0 announcing that Douglas-Hamilton had been \u201cnamed the 2010 recipient of the Indianapolis Prize,\u201d\u00a0 presented by Cummins Inc.,\u00a0 a manufacturer of diesel engines.<\/p>\n The $100,000 award helped to fund a reinvigorated Save the Elephants anti-poaching campaign.<\/p>\n Instead of trying to shoot the poachers,\u00a0 as Richard Leakey and others had done,\u00a0 finding that killing poachers chiefly created job openings for more poachers,\u00a0 Iain Douglas-Hamilton focused on educating potential ivory customers in China.<\/p>\n \u201cHe helped bring Yao Ming, \u00a0China\u2019s National Basketball Association star, \u00a0and other Chinese celebrities to East Africa, \u00a0persuading them to become ambassadors for the cause,\u201d\u00a0 wrote Gettleman.<\/p>\n <\/a> (Beth Clifton photo)<\/strong><\/em><\/div>\n Back at Samburu,\u00a0 Iain Douglas-Hamilton in January 2011 opened a \u201cnine-mile man-made corridor that surrounds [a wildlife tunnel under a busy highway] that allows elephants to move from low to high to search for food and mates,\u201d\u00a0 reported Jason Straziuso for Associated Press.<\/p>\n \u201cThe fenced-in corridor will also help strengthen the elephants\u2019 gene pool,\u201d\u00a0 Straziuso summarized.\u00a0 \u201cThe overall corridor and tunnel project cost $1 million.\u201d<\/p>\n Said Iain Douglas-Hamilton,\u00a0 \u201cAll over Africa this incredible wildlife is increasingly being fragmented by the growing human population.\u00a0 If African wildlife is to survive, \u00a0solutions must be found of this nature, \u00a0where connectivity is preserved through corridors.\u201d<\/p>\n But Iain Douglas-Hamilton acknowledged, \u00a0Straziuso wrote,\u00a0 that \u201cCheaper solutions will also need to be found, \u00a0including points where traffic will be stopped so elephants can cross the road.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/a> (Beth Clifton collage)<\/strong><\/em><\/div>\n GoDaddy.com web domain registration baron Bob Parsons in March 2011 posted a video of himself purporting to be practicing elephant conservation by shooting an alleged crop-raiding elephant in Zimbabwe later.<\/p>\n NameCheap, \u00a0a GoDaddy rival, \u00a0offered to donate $1.00 from the $4.99 price of arranging a web name transfer to Save the Elephants, \u00a0of Nairobi, \u00a0Kenya. \u00a0The promotion raised $20,433.<\/p>\n Said Iain Douglas-Hamilton in accepting the funding,\u00a0 \u201cYou can\u2019t control crop raiding in Africa through foreign hunters. \u00a0It\u2019s not going to work.\u00a0 It\u2019s a perk for people who enjoy killing elephants to justify themselves.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/a> (Beth Clifton collage)<\/strong><\/em><\/div>\n As the ivory poaching crisis worsened,\u00a0 in May 2011 four out of seven Mount Kenya elephants whom Save the Elephants had outfitted with radio collars were poached,\u00a0 \u201conly a short hike from the rustic cabin where Prince William proposed to Kate Middleton,\u201d\u00a0 reported Straziuso.<\/p>\n From there the poaching only increased,\u00a0 to a rate that as of January 2013 was seven times the rate of 2007.<\/p>\n \u201cNow the situation is far graver,\u201d\u00a0 Iain Douglas-Hamilton told Mike Pflanz,\u00a0 by then working for the Christian Science Monitor<\/em>,\u00a0 \u201cbecause we have fewer elephants left, \u00a0but the demand for ivory is far greater.\u00a0 The only thing that will radically alter the situation now is somehow to lower that demand.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIvory demand and prices have reached a point at which poachers are\u00a0willing to target well-protected, closely monitored populations,\u201d\u00a0 Iain Douglas-Hamilton added to Straziuso after 12 elephants were killed in a single poaching incident.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is now being replicated in\u00a0protected areas across Africa.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/a> 19th century Chinese elephant ivory figurine.<\/strong><\/em><\/div>\n Across Africa,\u00a0 a Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species report released in March 2013 found,\u00a0 poachers killed at least 25,000 African elephants in 2011.<\/p>\n CITES elephant program statistician Kenneth Burnham told Bryan Christy of National Geographic that an estimated 34.7 tons of illegal ivory were seized globally in 2012.<\/p>\n \u201cUsing an Interpol rule of thumb that says seized contraband equals 10% of actual smuggling, and assuming that each elephant carries 22 pounds of ivory,\u201d\u00a0 Christy wrote,\u00a0 \u201cthat weight equates to 31,500 dead elephants.\u201d<\/p>\n But Iain Douglas-Hamilton\u2019s educational efforts in China did bring results.<\/p>\n On the last day of 2016,\u00a0 the Chinese government announced that all commerce in ivory within China was to end before 2017.<\/p>\n \u201cChina is moving from being the main problem to being the main\u00a0solution,\u201d\u00a0 Iain Douglas-Hamilton told Gettleman and Edward Wong of The New York Times<\/em>.<\/p>\n \u201cWith the end of the legal ivory trade in China,\u201d\u00a0 Iain Douglas-Hamilton elaborated to BBC News<\/em> business reporter Kait Bolongaro in March 2017,\u00a0 \u201cthe survival chances for elephants have distinctly improved. \u00a0We must give credit to China for having done the right thing by closing the ivory trade. \u00a0There is still a long way to go to end the excessive killing of elephants for ivory, \u00a0but there is now greater hope for the species.\u201d<\/p>\n The major threat to elephant survival that Iain Douglas-Hamilton perceived at that point was from legal trophy hunting,\u00a0 restrained chiefly by an ongoing U.S. embargo on the import of elephant body parts that the first Donald Trump administration threatened to undo at behest of Safari Club International.<\/p>\n \u201cAfricans,\u201d\u00a0 Iain Douglas-Hamilton objected to Juliet Eilperin and Daryl Fears of The New York Times,\u00a0 <\/em>\u201care being told don\u2019t kill elephants, \u00a0while rich Americans are being allowed to come and do it. \u00a0Now is absolutely not the time to be opening up hunting.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/a> Esmond Bradley Martin Jr.<\/strong><\/em> Esmond Bradley Martin,\u00a0 \u00a076,\u00a0 a friend and colleague of Iain Douglas-Hamilton in combatting ivory poaching since 1973,\u00a0 was stabbed to death in his own bed on February 5,\u00a0 2018.\u00a0 The murder remains unsolved.<\/p>\n \u201cEsmond was one of conservation\u2019s great unsung heroes,\u201d\u00a0 Iain Douglas-Hamilton testified.\u00a0 \u201cHis meticulous work into ivory and rhino horn markets was conducted often in some\u00a0of the world\u2019s most remote and dangerous places and against intensely busy\u00a0schedules that would have exhausted a man half his age.<\/p>\n \u201cDuring his 18 years with Save The Elephants, Esmond,\u00a0 alongside his research\u00a0partners,\u201d\u00a0 including Daniel Stiles and Lucy Vigne, \u00a0\u201cproduced 10 crucial reports into legal and illegal ivory markets,\u201d\u00a0 Iain Douglas-Hamilton recounted.<\/p>\n <\/a> (Beth Clifton photo)<\/strong><\/em><\/div>\n At age 75,\u00a0 Iain Douglas-Hamilton was slowing down a bit,\u00a0 but \u201cIn the event it was not elephants that ended his life but a swarm of bees, \u00a0which attacked him while he was walking back to his home at Naivasha,\u201d\u00a0 wrote Jackman.<\/p>\n \u201cHe was flown to Cape Town,\u00a0 South Africa, \u00a0for treatment but never recovered.\u201d<\/p>\n Elaborated Gettleman,\u00a0 \u201cOne evening in 2023, \u00a0as he and Ms. Douglas-Hamilton were strolling on another property they owned in Naivasha, \u00a0Kenya, \u00a0they were attacked by a swarm of bees. \u00a0When Mr. Douglas-Hamilton tried to shield her with his body, \u00a0he was stung many times, went into anaphylactic shock and nearly died. \u00a0He never quite got his strength back.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/a> (Beth Clifton photo)<\/strong><\/em><\/div>\n \u201cIain Douglas-Hamilton, \u00a0together with Oria Douglas-Hamilton, \u00a0have been inspiration since our arrival 25 years ago,\u201d\u00a0 offered a statement from Action for Cheetahs in Kenya,\u00a0 headquartered in Nairobi.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen we shared our vision for a range-wide cheetah survey,\u201d\u00a0 Action for Cheetahs in Kenya added, \u00a0\u201cthe Save the Elephants team offered unwavering support for surveys across northern Kenya.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/a> Iain Douglas-Hamilton.\u00a0 (Saba Douglas Hamilton Instagram photo)<\/strong><\/em><\/div>\n Remembered former Kenyan journalist Raabia Abdul Kadir Hawa,\u00a0 founder of the Ulinzi Africa Foundation,\u00a0 among a constellation of indigenous Kenyan organizations taking over the conservation work formerly done mostly by British and American expatriates,\u00a0 \u201cIain always asked how my adventures were going. \u00a0I was still finding my feet in the conservation world. \u00a0Iain was patient and ever responsive, \u00a0always taking my calls and sharing feedback for my media stories back when I was covering poaching in The Star<\/em> newspaper.<\/p>\n \u201cIn 2016,\u201d\u00a0 on the second occasion when Kenyan officials burned stockpiled ivory seized from poachers, \u00a0Raabia Abdul Kadir Hawa continued, \u201cMzee Iain, Mama Oria and I met in Nairobi and shared the same somber mood among us as we walked from pyre to pyre of smoldering ivory and wildlife products, \u00a0saying goodbye and really taking in the sheer scale of the massacre that elephants have endured over the years.<\/p>\nStudied everything about elephants from their psyches to the tips of their tails & fought for elephant survival from the northern Kenyan desert to lecture halls in Beijing,\u00a0 China<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
(Beth Clifton collage\/Wikipedia photo)<\/strong><\/em><\/div>\nFather set a lofty mark<\/h2>\n
<\/p>\n<\/p>\nAnd so did his mother<\/h2>\n
<\/p>\n<\/p>\nSame boarding school as King Charles III<\/h2>\n
<\/p>\n<\/p>\nLions<\/h2>\n
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
(Beth Clifton photo)<\/strong><\/em><\/div>\nRhino<\/h2>\n
<\/p>\n<\/p>\nNamed the elephants<\/h2>\n
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n\u201cPeople who understood who animals are\u201d<\/h2>\n
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
(Beth Clifton collage)<\/strong><\/em><\/div>\nCynthia Moss<\/h2>\n
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
(Saba Douglas-Hamilton Instagram photo)<\/strong><\/em><\/div>\nOria Rocco<\/h2>\n
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
(Saba Douglas-Hamilton Instagram photo)<\/strong><\/em><\/div>\nAmong The Elephants<\/h2>\n
<\/p>\n<\/p>\nUganda<\/h2>\n
<\/p>\n<\/p>\nBurned ivory<\/h2>\n
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
(Facebook photo)<\/strong><\/em><\/div>\nEsmond Bradley Martin<\/h2>\n
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
(Daniel Stiles photo)<\/strong><\/em><\/div>\nGPS<\/h2>\n
<\/p>\n<\/p>\nElephant Crisis Fund<\/h2>\n
<\/p>\n<\/p>\nTail hair study<\/h2>\n
Imenti Forest\u2013\u20132,000 meters above sea level on Mount Kenya.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n\u201cElephants hate climbing hills\u201d<\/h2>\n
<\/p>\n<\/p>\nElephants\u2019 empathy & awareness of death<\/h2>\n
<\/p>\n<\/p>\nGot the boot<\/h2>\n
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n\u201cNot enough studies\u201d<\/h2>\n
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
(Beth Clifton collage)<\/strong><\/em><\/div>\nTook anti-ivory message to China<\/h2>\n
<\/p>\n<\/p>\nElephant corridor<\/h2>\n
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n\u201cForeign hunters can\u2019t control crop raiding\u201d<\/h2>\n
<\/p>\n<\/p>\nIvory demand & poaching spike<\/h2>\n
<\/p>\n<\/p>\nInvestment in China pays off<\/h2>\n
Legal hunting now the main threat<\/h2>\n
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
(Beth Clifton collage)<\/strong><\/em><\/div>\nEsmond Martin murdered<\/h2>\n
<\/p>\n<\/p>\nKiller bees<\/h2>\n
<\/p>\n<\/p>\nAction for Cheetahs in Kenya<\/h2>\n
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n\u201cPatient and ever-responsive\u201d<\/h2>\n