Today’s Google Doodle celebrates Ahmed the Elephant – an elephant that lived in Kenya’s Marsabit National Reserve – and arguably the most famous in African history.
Ahmed was born in 1919 in the forests of Mount Marsabit, but only gained notoriety in the 60s when he was spotted by hikers who said his tusks were so large they scraped the ground as he walked.
He became known as the “King of Marsabit”, and after the first sighting his legend grew not only across Kenya, but also the whole of Africa – despite him seldom being seen. When he was spotted, he was often joined by two smaller bull elephants.
Legend said that Ahmed’s tusks were so large he had to walk backwards up hills – however this was never documented. His tusks, though, were the largest and heaviest known in Africa, weighing 150lb each.
Ahmed’s popularity grew further in the 70s, when efforts grew to protect elephants from poachers who were after their tusks for ivory. He featured in a number of films and TV series, including ABC’s The American Sportsman and The Search for Ahmed.
The elephant became so beloved that, after a letter-writing campaign by Kenyan school children, the country’s first president, Jomo Kenyatta, signed a decree to officially place him under protection. He was the only elephant to ever receive an individual protection order and be declared a living monument.
As part of the decree, Ahmed was watched day and night by two guards until his death from natural causes in 1974, aged 55. The guards discovered his body lying peacefully against a tree.
After his death, President Kenyatta ordered Ahmed’s body to be stuffed and displayed at the Nairobi National Museum, where it remains to this day.
The son of the Kenyan photographer Mohamed Amin, Salim Amin, has spoken of his father’s encounter with Ahmed as he took what turned out to be the last pictures of the elephant.
“They had been following him on foot all day and, when his patience with them eventually ran out, he charged the camera team,” he said.
“My father and his colleague Peter Moll were running away and decided to run on opposite sides of a huge tree, not realising they were still attached together by the sound cables and Peter was whipped back around the tree narrowly missing the giant tusks!”