Photographer took the last images of 60-year-old ‘queen of the elephants with huge tusks: They seemed to be a relic of a bygone era

Animals In August 2017 started by British photographer Will Burrard-Lucas on a new project that almost two years would take. He went to Tsavo in Kenya where he worked with the Tsavo Trust to make a photo book to make. The fund is committed in the national parks of Tsavo for the wild animals. That book, “Land of Giants”, is located at the end of this month in the shops. On the cover of the book? The majestic “queen of the elephants”.

From the rangers from the Tsavo Trust, this queen, known under the code name “F_MU1". The elephant is a “tusker”, i.e. a reuzeolifant. A term used for savanneolifanten with exceptionally long tusks, which are at least 45 kilos each roads and two metres long. There are only less than thirty of these African elephants around our earth. Shortly after his arrival in Tsavo is Burrard-Lucas has managed the elephant of shooting and filming. Not much later, the sixty-year-old animal died of natural causes. She lived her entire life from the hands of poachers is able to continue, is “a victory”, says the photographer. Because the tuskers are very popular with those who are out of ivory because of the enormous tusks.

“I was very impressed when I saw her for the first time. They had the most amazing doc I have ever seen. If there is a ‘queen of elephants’, then she is anyway. They seemed to be a relic of a bygone era,” writes Burrard-Lucas on his website. “It is very rare if you're a nature photographer a topic such as F_MU1 can shooting. It is a unique human being - possibly the most remarkable of its kind, and still have, but only a few people photographed.

The local authorities never give out information about the tuskers of Tsavo, to the animals to protect. Outside Tsavo knew only very few people that F_MU1 existed.