This is Ahmed, reputedly one of the oldest elephants with the biggest tusks, in Kenya ... somewhere I have photos of the animal when it was alive, up at Marsabit, a mountain in what we used to call the NFD ... the northern frontier district ! (A very pre-independence, colonial name). When he died in the 1970's, his skeleton was put in the National Museum in Nairobi.
And here he is, in the flesh, so to speak ! He was protected under a special Presidential decree by Mzee Jomo Kenyatta, and had armed guards near him, day and night, as those tusks would have been worth a bit. There were two other slightly younger elephants always near him, sort of companions. It was interesting very slowly approaching him through the bush, but as I say, the askari's were there to protect us as well as the elephants.
It wasn't until I saw his skeleton in the museum on my 1996 trip with S. and T., that I realised just how large he was.
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