Greetings! My name is Lynn Von Hagen and I am a PhD student at Auburn University in the United States. I hail from Nashville, Tennessee, but have been splitting my time between home and Africa.
The team from our project, "Elephants and Sustainable Agriculture in Kenya," have been working on ways to promote human elephant coexistence, and I have been studying African savannah elephant (Loxodonta africana) movements and behavior in southeastern Kenya for the last three years.
I work in the Kasigau Wildlife Corridor, an area between Tsavo East and Tsavo West National Park, and home to the country’s largest elephant population! This area experiences a great deal of human elephant conflict (HEC) as elephants cross into agricultural areas to raid farmers’ crops. This creates a dangerous situation; people trying to defend their land can be injured or killed and struggle to maintain their livelihoods, and they sometimes lash out against elephants.
So, my goal is to find ways to keep elephants out of crops, therefore reducing HEC and increasing sustainable livelihoods for people living in rural, impoverished and drought stricken areas. I look forward to sharing my adventures with you and I hope you learn something new!
