Elephants are expert navigators—understanding their travel helps us protect them

Adult elephants need to eat up to 150 kilograms of food per day and drink up to 200 litres of water. But unlike us, they can’t just pop into a shop or turn on a tap. The vital resources elephants need are scattered and sometimes scarce—but they can’t afford to waste energy on unnecessary climbs or detours. 

Elephants carefully choose the paths they tread, showing a remarkable ability to balance costs and rewards, according to new research. This eye-opening science confirms that elephants are smart, adaptable decision-makers who deeply understand their environment. 

‘These new results have important implications for assessing and planning conservation and restoration measures, such as dispersal corridors, by explicitly accounting for the energy costs of moving,’ said researcher Dr. Emilio Berti. 

How elephants choose where to roam 

Researchers fit 157 elephants in northern Kenya with GPS collars that transmitted location signals, showing their movements over a period of two decades. Computer models helped researchers compare the actual routes elephants took with alternatives they could have chosen. From this analysis, they identified the factors most important in the elephants’ decision-making. 

The results were striking. 

Most elephants avoided steep, hilly areas or rough terrain. Just like how people tend to avoid a long climb when an easier road exists, elephants favour the path of least resistance. This makes sense—moving a multi-tonne body uphill burns a lot of calories. 

Food is always a top priority. Nearly all the elephants showed a strong preference for areas with thick vegetation. In fact, a greener patch of land was far more likely to attract elephants, even if it meant walking further. 

Water is also important. However, while some elephants tended to stick close to rivers and waterholes, others seemed comfortable venturing farther away. Surprisingly, about half of the elephants didn’t show a strong pattern either way. This shows that elephants, like people, have individual habits and personalities when it comes to risk and comfort. 

Speed changes everything. When elephants moved slowly, they were somewhat flexible in terms of terrain. But the faster they moved—perhaps when heading to a key destination—they became much stricter about conserving energy. At top speeds, almost all elephants avoided steep climbs. 

Understanding elephant movement informs conservation 

As human activity expands through roads, farms, towns and villages, mines, and plantations, Africa’s savannahs are becoming increasingly fragmented. This means that elephants’ traditional routes are often blocked. By understanding exactly how elephants weigh the costs and benefits of different paths, conservationists can design wildlife corridors that are more likely to be used by elephants. These are safe passageways linking feeding areas, water sources, and breeding grounds. 

‘This work clearly illustrates why, for a long-lived species such as elephants, it is so important that matriarchs are the repositories of knowledge, which they can pass on to their offspring on how to access critical resources and how to do it best,’ says Dr. Robert Guldemond from the University of Pretoria’s Conservation Ecology Research Unit. 

These exciting insights into elephant behaviour help inform Room to Roam, IFAW’s visionary approach to conservation across East and southern Africa. Room to Roam is a major collaborative initiative to secure and connect habitats, creating safe passages for elephants and other wildlife to travel freely through their home ranges. 

‘Research by IFAW shows that elephants prefer areas with little human disturbance, where they can move freely across the landscape,’ says Henry Ndaimani, IFAW Program Manager for Landscape Conservation. ‘Farmlands may provide food for elephants, but they also bring high risks because of conflict with people. This means elephants are constantly balancing the benefits of food against the dangers of disturbance. Studying which landscapes allow elephants to use their energy most efficiently gives us valuable insight into how they see and use their environment. These findings are helping shape smarter conservation and land-use strategies that work for both elephants and people.’ 

The next time you imagine elephants walking across the savannah, think of them not as aimless wanderers, but as expert navigators, reading an invisible map of effort and reward. They know when to save energy, when to seek out food, and when to take the easy road instead of the steep climb. For elephants, every step counts. And if we watch closely, those steps can guide us toward a better future for both wildlife and people.