tembo

… one of the most exceptionally adorable creatures on earth for me???

ELEPHANTS

I could watch their behavior especially the communication and interactions with each other endlessly…

I would like to mention one success story for elephant as well as black rhino orphans which most of the time sadly lost their family due to poaching.

It’s the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust which is a small, flexible charity, established in 1977 in honour to memory of a famous Naturalist, David Leslie William Sheldrick, the founder Warden of Tsavo East National Park in Kenya.

Daphne Sheldrick, his wife, was the first person in the entire world to successfully hand rear newborn fully milk dependent African Elephant orphans, something that spanned 28 years of trial and error to achieve. By the year 2008 the Trust had successfully saved and hand-reared over 82 infant African Elephant calves. Currently, over 40 elephants are fully established and living free amongst their wild peers in Tsavo, some returning with wild born young to show their erstwhile human family. Based at two established Elephant Rehabilitation Centers within Tsavo East National Park others are still in the gradual process of re-integration with yet others in early infancy at the Trust’s Nairobi National Park Elephant and Rhino Nursery. The Trust has trained a team of competent Elephant Keeper who replace the orphans’ lost elephant family until such time as the transition to the wild herds has been accomplished, something that can take up to l0 years, since elephant calves duplicate their human counterparts in terms of development through age progression. Those that were orphaned too young to recall their elephant family remain dependent longer, but all the Trust’s orphans eventually take their rightful place amongst their wild counterparts, including those orphaned on the day they were born…