Ulysses

Ulysses was born in 1979 and named by the Amboseli Trust for Elephants. He grew into one of Kenya’s biggest tuskers - a super tusker by definition with tusks that weigh over 45kg each.

With Big Life Foundation’s support, he survived four decades of Kenya’s poaching crisis. Big Life Foundation partners with local communities to protect over 2 million acres of wilderness in the Amboseli-Tsavo-Kilimanjaro ecosystem of East Africa.

Thanks to protection from Big Life rangers and the Kenya Wildlife Service, Ulysses made it not only through the worst of the ivory-poaching days but also counter another big threat the so-called “human-wildlife conflict”.

Ulysses was speared on two different occasions by farmers in retaliation for crop raiding, before the construction of Big Life’s crop-protection fence. On both occasions, in 2016 and 2018, he was successfully treated and since then has wandered in Amboseli, delighting those lucky enough to see him.

Ulysses died on March 27, 2022, of seemingly natural causes. His tusks were recovered and weighed in at a staggering 51 and 47 kg - which at the height of the elephant-poaching crisis would have been worth US $200,000.

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