Moving an elephant was never meant to be easy. Obviously, the Kenya Wildlife Service's (kws's) much-publicised "single largest translocation of animals ever undertaken since Noah's Ark', comprising shifting of 400 elephants, proved to be an uphill task. On August 25, 2005, kws began the translocation from the Shimba Hills National Reserve (shnr), 30 kilometres (km) south of the port of Mombasa, to Tsavo East National Park, over 350 km away.

The first elephant, a 22-year-old bull, was tranquillised and loaded in a truck for what should have been the start of the ambitious operation. But the project was