The Southern Conservation Area experienced dry weather conditions in June 2023. There was plenty of forage within Amboseli National Park, but wildlife preferred grazing outside the park. Most of the veterinary cases attended to over this period were predominantly attributed to human-wildlife conflict.
The SWT/KWS Amboseli Mobile Veterinary Unit attended to five cases in total. The veterinary team performed an autopsy on an adult elephant that had a treatment history before death; treated 8 lions (1 adult female and 7 sub-adults) that had been poisoned in retaliation for killing livestock and later performed a post-mortem on a female sub-adult lion that succumbed to the poison. The team also performed another autopsy on another lion suspected to have been speared in a separate incident. All the lions attended to were victims of retaliatory human attacks after they preyed on livestock. Lastly, the Veterinary Unit also attended to a Maasai giraffe with a cut on the Achilles tendon suffered during a suspected poaching attempt.