This one started with a routine fixed-wing patrol over Kamboyo. During the dry season, bulls congregate around reliable watering points, which makes these areas vulnerable to poaching. Always, but especially at the height of the dry season, we take special care to check every bull we fly over in these target zones.

Due to this level of diligence, our pilot spotted a large bull with a small injury on his right side. It was subtle but, tellingly, oozing pus — a hallmark of a poison arrow wound. He radioed the sighting into our Kaluku Headquarters, and a treatment was quickly mobilised.

It was shaping up to be a busy day: The SWT/KWS Tsavo Mobile Vet Unit was already en route to another elephant treatment up in Ithumba. After completing that operation, the SWT helicopter flew the team down to Kamboyo.

Again, our aerial capabilities played a pivotal role: Ithumba is in the northern sector of Tsavo East, while Kamboyo is in Tsavo West — an entirely different national park. Thanks to the helicopter, the team was able to treat both elephants in a single afternoon.

The bull was near a waterhole with hundreds of other animals, from elephants to buffalo to zebra, which would prove to be a complicating factor. After Dr Limo darted the patient from the air, the helicopter guided him towards an empty, open area where treatment could commence.

The bull’s body had been working in overdrive to fight the poison. The wound was heavily infected and full of pus. Dr Limo only found the arrowhead at the very end, after mining through more than a foot of necrotic flesh. At last, the culprit emerged: A small but potentially lethal arrowhead, which had been coated in poison before it met its target.

Fortunately, this bull was saved before the poison did its lethal work. He is expected to make a complete recovery.