Country Area - 1,240,000 km²
Range Area - 25,495 km² (2%)
Protected Range - 89%
Information Quality Index (IQI) - 0.83
CITES Appendix - I
Listing Year - 1994 (year of accession)
Elephants in Mali are largely confined to Gourma, an arid area in the Sahel north of the border with Burkina Faso, where the elephants live alongside pastoralists. They are the continent’s most northerly elephants, and together with Namibia’s Kunene elephants, the most adapted to arid conditions. They move long distances in a circular migration pattern with individual home ranges being the largest recorded in Africa (Wall et al., 2013).
Until 2012 agricultural expansion was seen as the main threat to the Gourma elephant population, since there was little poaching and local pastoralists tolerated the elephants. This changed when the area was occupied by jihadists, and the first cases of poaching occurred. Although the government has re-established partial control of the area, the jihadists are still active, and general insecurity has allowed poaching to continue (Canney, pers. comm., 2016a). Twenty elephants were known to have been poached between January 2012 and January 2015, with an upsurge in the first half of 2015, during which period 64 were killed. By the end of 2015 the total had risen to 103 elephants killed since 2012 (Canney, pers. comm., 2016a). In addition, at least 36 elephants died of thirst and starvation in 2010 as a result of pressure from high numbers of livestock in the elephants’ dry season range (Canney & Ganame, 2012).
Mali published an elephant conservation plan in 1991, although this is now out of date (Direction Nationale des Eaux et Forets, 1991).
The estimated number of elephants in areas surveyed in the last ten years in Mali is 253 at the time of the last survey. There may be an additional 51 elephants in areas not systematically surveyed. These guesses likely represent a minimum number, and actual numbers could be higher than those reported. Together, this estimate and guess apply to 25,495 km², which is the entire estimated elephant range in Mali.
The Gourma elephants move over a large area and are difficult to survey using conventional techniques. A reconnaissance aerial count was carried out in June 2015, which gave an estimate of 253 elephants (Dias et al., 2015). A low wing aircraft, which is not ideal for survey work, was used and the count was carried out two months later than planned, by which time the elephants had dispersed and some were known to have been missed. Subsequently, an additional 51 elephants, were recorded from the ground (Ganame, pers. comm., 2015) and these have been added, giving a total of 304. This is lower than the previous individual registration study which recorded 498 elephants in 2004-2005 (Hema et al., pers. comm., 2006), and the aerial survey of 2007 which gave an estimate of 344 elephants (Bouché, 2007c).
Nine elephants were fitted with GPS collars and tracked between 2008 and 2010 (Wall et al., 2013). They moved over a larger area than those collared in 2000-2001. This range change is shown in the revised range map. Elephants, particularly bulls, sometimes move further beyond the main range, and these movements are shown as point records. The Gourma elephants move about 20 km into northern Burkina Faso as part of their regular migration (Wall et al., 2013).
Elephants are occasionally seen in southwestern Mali and believed to come from Côte d’Ivoire or western Burkina Faso (Dakouo, pers. comm., 2004; Nomoko, 2006) although they are said to be less frequent since the end of the civil war in Côte d’Ivoire (Canney, pers. comm., 2016b).