A set of twin baby elephants has been discovered last week at the Samburu National Reserve in Northern Kenya. Tour guides from the park’s Elephant Watch Camp (EWC) first saw the male and female calves out on the camp at the weekend. They are just the second set ever to have been witnessed by the non-profit local conservation charity called Save the Elephants (STE), which trains EWC tour guides to determine the park’s different types of elephants.

Iain Douglas-Hamilton, the founder of STE, explained that this is a risky time for the twins as the previously encountered set had not survived long after birth 15 years ago. “Twins are rarely encountered in elephant populations — and form around only 1% of births. Quite often the mothers don’t have enough milk to support two calves,” he said. The elephants’ mother named Bora is from the reserve’s Winds II family. The two baby calves are her second and third since 2017. Meanwhile, illegal hunters have been chasing down elephants in Kenya and other sub-Saharan African countries to collect ivory with their tusks. On the other hand, according to the Kenya Wildlife Service, its elephant population as of 2020 has improved (from 16,000 to 34,800) since 1989.