Not on my watch

a dark morning in November 2014 wildlife photographer Margot Raggett was jolted awake by a cackle of hyenas ‘going absolutely crazy’ close to camp. She was in the final days of a trip to Laikipia in northern Kenya – a region that boasts more endangered species than anywhere else in Africa. At first light she set off with her campmates to see what had been going on and was horrified to find a male elephant, no more than 14 years old, lying dead on the ground. ‘He still had his tusks in him, but obviously he had started to be eaten,’ she recalls. ‘I said to the guys “what the hell happened? How is this possible?”’ Her campmates pointed to an arrow embedded in the animal’s body. ‘They said poachers would have tried to kill him with the arrow, but he must have bolted and it would have taken four or five days for him to die from the poison,’ she explains. ‘He would have been alone, scared and in pain.’ The sight of this magnificent mammal reduced to hyena food left her overwhelmed. ‘I felt