Claire Bolles

About Claire Bolles

I am the proud Executive Director at Mara Elephant Project USA located in Indiana. I spend most of my time telling anyone who will listen about the amazing elephant conservation work of Mara Elephant Project in Kenya. Previously, I owned a consulting company focused on providing marketing and public relations services to small women-owned businesses. In my 20s, I started and ran a high-end women\'s boutique in Indianapolis, 8FIFTEEN, which is still around today providing many accomplished women with the latest in fashion. I have a journalism degree from Purdue University and cut my teeth as a producer at MSNBC and content writer at the Indianapolis Monthly. I\'m a proud former board member and current ambassador for the Washington Township Schools Foundation, connecting private dollars to public education. If I\'m not working, I\'m either on a plane, reading, cooking, horseback riding or quietly observing my chaotic young family.

Experience

1. Executive Director

   Mara Elephant Project

   Feb 2022 — Present · Carmel, IN, US

   For over a decade, Mara Elephant Project (MEP) has been protecting elephants and their habitats across the Greater Mara Ecosystem (GME). The GME, an extension of the vast Serengeti ecosystem, is Kenya’s most important wildlife area and tourism asset. The Mara-Serengeti Ecosystem is one of the last major wildlife refuges on Earth. Most famous for its annual migration of nearly two million wildebeest and zebra, the ecosystem is also home to an estimated 40% of Africa’s large mammals. Historically, people and wildlife peacefully co-existed when space for both did not overlap; however, as the human footprint has expanded, so has livestock and farming, pushing wild animals into smaller spaces. Elephants are a keystone species to this ecosystem and when poaching emerged as the number one threat in 2012 (96 elephants that year alone were killed for their ivory) MEP took action to successfully combat this global threat. Today, the drastic expansion of the human footprint in the region is causing devastating loss of habitat, which means MEP must expand its mission and goals to save the Mara’s wildlife and wild spaces.MEP’s vision is to see a stable and healthy elephant population co-existing peacefully with people across the GME. For over a decade at MEP, we’ve worked together with the Government of Kenya, KWS, Wildlife Research and Training Institute (WRTI), community conservancies and other conservation organizations to build a better future for elephants and their habitats. MEP is a remarkable force of dedicated men and women working together 24/7 to protect elephants, the GME, Kenyan wildlife and wild spaces for generations to come.

Education

• Purdue University

  Bachelor's degree, Journalism