Anna and her herd are now monitored via a GPS collar on another adult female elephant in the herd named Mutiara. She is part of Anna’s core family group. Mutiara, which means pearl in the Indonesian language, was collared in February 2019. Mutiara and Anna are part of a herd of up to 30 elephants. This herd shares much of their time and home range with Ginting, Indah, and, to a lesser extent, with Cinta. There are several calves and juveniles of all ages in the herd which indicates healthy natural population growth which is wonderful.
Over the last six months, Mutiara and her herd have continued to often travel in close proximity to Ginting and Indah’s herd. Mutiara has a home range of 527km2 which is the smallest home-range of all five monitored females in the Bukit Tigapuluh Ecosystem, however it’s still a large area to cover for the Elephant Conservation and Monitoring Units. Mutiara’s home range pattern is very similar to Indahs’ home range which confirms the joint traveling pattern confirmed by direct observation. Thankfully, recently, Mutiara and her herd have not crossed the WKS industry road and caused any damage to these heaving planted areas. Nikolas, a young subadult bull elephant has spent time with Mutiara’s herd over the last six months.
