A ban on elephant hunting has collapsed. Or maybe it never existed.

On the lush, rolling savannas that connect northern Tanzania to Kenya’s Amboseli National Park, elephants move back and forth across a rolling landscape in the shadow of snow-capped Kilimanjaro.

The animals are used to open 4x4s full of tourists on the Kenyan side and don’t seem to be threatened by visitors pointing at their phones. But what the animals probably don’t know is that just across the border on the Tanzanian side, which for three decades was as safe as the park, there are now people pointing at their guns instead of their cameras.

Since September, five bull elephants from a population concentrated around Amboseli have been shot dead, probably by trophy hunters, in the Tanzanian part of this corridor. At least two were so-called super tuskers, with tusks so long they reached the ground.

There has not been a similar series of rapid killings in the area since the mid-1990s, a move conservationists say signals a breach in a tacit agreement between the countries that banned hunting in the border area.

It also highlights the challenges the neighbours face in coordinating different approaches to managing their shared wildlife heritage: Kenya bans hunting and derives all of its wildlife revenue from sightseeing. While wildlife safaris are a major part of Tanzania’s economy, the country also allows wealthy tourists to shoot big game.

“This is heartbreaking to me,” said Cynthia Moss, an American zoologist who monitors the roughly 2,000 elephants in Amboseli’s herd as director of the Amboseli Trust for Elephants. About 10 of Amboseli’s super tuskers remain and another 15 or so across Kenya, she said. “I know these elephants. I know how gullible they are.”

The killings have caused an uproar in Kenya. In April, dozens of prominent conservationists wrote an open letter to the Tanzanian government, demanding that authorities ban hunting within 25 miles of the Kenyan border. Tanzanian officials have remained silent; past government statements have justified the hunt by arguing that it brings in millions in much-needed revenue.

Kaddu Sebunya, head of the African Wildlife Foundation, a conservation group based in Kenya, said it was unlikely the elephants had been shot by poachers, noting that there was no sign of an investigation by Tanzanian authorities.

“If a poacher were to kill an elephant illegally in the same place, they would be dealt with according to the law,” he said. Tanzanian wildlife officials and the Kenyan wildlife service did not respond to repeated requests for comment.

The elephant massacre in Tanzania three decades ago prompted similar anger and the announcement of a moratorium on hunting.

In December 1994, three Amboseli elephants were killed in a short period near Longido, a town about nine miles from the border, sparking outrage in Kenya. In May 1995, under pressure from conservationists and scientists in Kenya and around the world, Tanzanian authorities imposed a nine-month ban on hunting in the area.

Tanzanian officials said the moratorium would be lifted once the two countries reached talks on a clearly demarcated protected area.

That’s where it gets muddy. While old newspaper clippings confirm that the ban was announced, it’s unclear whether there were ever any discussions or whether the nine-month restriction was ever lifted. There seems to be no evidence of further action. But for whatever reason, hunters had avoided the area until recently.

Ms Moss and other conservationists in Kenya say there was an unspoken agreement between the two countries after the initial announcement, and that it appears to have failed. Experts say they do not know why. Tanzania’s conservation law has not changed.

Hunters says the lack of clarity means the agreement simply did not exist.

Tanzania today has about 60,000 elephants, down from 316,000 in 1978. Kenya has about 60,000. There are 35,000 left, down from approximately 160,000 around the same time.

As keystone species, elephants not only provide ecosystems for other wildlife – for example, by creating water holes with their tusks and dispersing seeds in their droppings – but their intelligence and advanced social structure also mean that violent deaths can occur. traumatize surviving elephants and result in aggressive behavior.

The larger, older bulls that are targeted are considered crucial for reproduction, as well as for the transmission of culture and the maintenance of social order. Male elephants usually live outside of herds, and young bulls sometimes spend time with older bulls, passing on knowledge such as where to forage and where to go as the seasons change.

They also model behavior. One study found that the lack of older males can cause younger bulls to become more aggressive.

According to Mr Sebunya, super tuskers help even younger bulls understand which people to avoid. “They tell them, ‘If you see these tourist vehicles, they’re OK, but if you see other types of vehicles, they’re trouble,'” he said.

The first elephant to die in the recent wave was Gilgil, a 35-year-old man killed in September. He was one of those elephants with large tusks.

By singling out elephants like Gilgil, Ms. Moss said, “the natural elements of competition and survival are taken away, allowing younger, less tested, perhaps less powerful males to reproduce.”

Sporting groups, on the other hand, argue that hunting, if managed properly, can have a net positive effect in a poorer country like Tanzania. (The country’s GDP per capita is about $1,200, according to the World Bank(compared to about $2,100 in Kenya.)

Zidane Janbeck and Quintin Whitehead, who run Kilombero North Safaris – which offers hunting trips for elephant, lion, leopard and other big game – say the company shares a percentage of its revenue with communities that own parts of the hunting grounds. (Kilombero said it paid the Enduimet Wildlife Management Area a total of $250,000 in 2023. Enduimet officials did not respond to a request for comment.)

In addition, human-elephant clashes are increasing in Tanzania, partly due to the rapidly growing rural population and also because of more frequent and intense droughts in East Africa. But farmers are less likely to kill elephants that invade their fields, hunters say, if they know they will get a cut of the hunting proceeds.

And by reserving well-managed natural areas for hunting, less land will be lost to agriculture, they add.

Tanzania sets annual quotas for the animals that can be hunted (this year 50 elephants) and each hunting group must be monitored by an official.

Kilombero confirmed that he had hunted an elephant in the area where Gilgil’s carcass was found, and had its tusks removed. However, he denied that he had killed an elephant with super tusks.

“We guarantee you that we are conservationists, we are not targeting big elephants,” Mr. Janbeck, who led the hunt in September, said in a video interview. “We do everything according to the rules in Tanzania. We have the support of the government. We have all the blessings of the local communities.”

In Longido, the residents seem divided.

On a recent weekday, a group of men gathered for late-night drinks and weighed their positions on trophy hunting. As long as it’s legal, fine, concluded one older man. A soft-spoken younger man countered by saying that killing for sport was no good.

But do the men profit from the hunting revenue? “No,” they all said in unison, shaking their heads. The authorities favor wildlife and sport hunters, but abandon vulnerable farmers, they said.

“You have to take out a loan to grow your farm and these elephants destroy it and we get nothing in return,” one farmer, Edward Masaki, 53, said in Swahili with a heavy frown.

“Right now I have men guarding my farms day and night with flashlights,” he said. “The bad thing is that you can’t kill the animals when they attack.”

He was referring to a nationwide ban on killing wild animals that Tanzania has imposed to combat poaching. Killing animals without a permit carries a heavy prison sentence: from three to 30 years.

Meanwhile, across the border in Amboseli, conservationists say they are waiting anxiously, fearing another large tusker has been killed, while they race to get a response from the Tanzanian government.

“All our pleas have fallen on deaf ears,” Ms Moss said. If the killing continues at the current rate, she said, Amboseli’s tuskers will be wiped out within two years, changing the ecosystem in unprecedented and negative ways.

“A population that is hunted becomes unnatural, because people choose who passes on their genes and who doesn’t, who gets to live and who gets to die,” she said.