Undoubtedly an ‘aaaah’ moment, but don’t be misled. Nairobi’s elephant orphanage is not about elephant pets. It’s about rearing orphaned infants so they can be returned to the wild. This is a painstaking process, using techniques derived from years of experience by Daphne Sheldrick. She established the orphanage in 1977 in memory of her husband, David Sheldrick. He was the founding warden of Tsavo East National Park (see previous post), appointed to the task of creating the park out of the Taru Desert thornscrub in 1948. For the next 25 years he, with Daphne alongside, laboured there to create access to the 5,000 square miles of wilderness reserve that visitors can enjoy today.
Part of the Sheldricks’ day to day living at Tsavo involved rescuing orphaned and injured animals. There were losses as well as successes but this work sowed the seeds of the orphanage to come. Daphne had learned that elephant infants die without constant emotional support. She also struggled to make an appropriate milk formula. Finally she evolved the system that provided each infant with its own keeper who, as surrogate mother, would be with it at all times, including sleeping with it.
Once the infants begin to thrive and grow, they are taken out for walks in nearby Nairobi National Park to begin their bush education. Later, when they grow too big for the orphanage, they are transferred to Tsavo East to continue their education. So far over 300 elephants have been returned to the wild.
Daphne died in 2018 and the enterprise, which extends to conservation initiatives beyond the orphanage, is now run as the Sheldrick Wildlife Trust by her daughter Angela Sheldrick. The website is well worth browsing.
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But for the process of raising an infant and re-establishing it in the wild go HERE
For more about the pioneering work of David Sheldrick go HERE.
What an amazing couple the Sheldricks were, and what dedicated people the carers are. It would be such a satisfying achievement to nurture the baby elephants to being able to go back into a herd in the wild.
Yes, what a sense of achievement it must be.
oh wow, what an extraordinary process, and learning the hard way must have been tough for her and all staff. Wonderful they learnt though and now provide such great care
It is quite an enterprise all round.
Imagine the dedication of the keepers. Well worth the effort!
Yes, indeed. Real dedication being an elephant ‘mother’.
Visiting the orphanage remains one of my favourite travel experiences ever, certainly a favourite wildlife experience! The dedication of the whole team there, especially the keepers, is so impressive and of course the baby elephants are very cute 🙂
By the way, have you seen the Herd of Hope in London’s Spitalfields? It’s not quite the same as the real thing but I do love having something of the Sheldrick orphans so close to home: https://www.toonsarah-travels.blog/a-little-bit-of-nairobi-in-londons-spitalfields/
Great work and dedication. I’m sure I have seen a TV show about this orphanage. We need more people like the Sheldricks. Love the photo too.
What a extraordinarily dedicated programme. Good to know it achieves positive results.
I think there are many good conservation initiatives in Kenya and elsewhere in Africa – by individuals, community groups and charities that we simply don’t hear about. Also lots of brave rangers who tackle poaching gangs.
A fairly thankless task, I guess.
How nice to know the Trust allows the work to continue on!
And very exciting to learn that 300 elephants have been returned to the wild
I think at least one of them has given birth to a wild elephant.
that is awesome
So thankful for their hard work in helping the elephants.
How wonderful! It’s good to know that there is benevolence happening in this crazy world we live in.
I think there’s more than we’re told about. It doesn’t sell newspapers.
You’re right and that’s too bad.
Amazing how sensitive the youngsters are, and it must have taken many hours of head scratching to establish a way to nurture them. Wonderful what dedication can do, Tish xx
I think grasping how emotionally fragile they are happened as a result of a sad outcome years before when the Sheldricks were in Tsavo. She’d been doing well with a young orphan and then had to go away for a short time. It ceased to thrive.
Incredibly important work, well done them and hopefully a large percentage of the orphans survived.
Once they get relocated to the park they are fairly grown up, but still have a period of education to undergo. I guess the only big threats are drought and poachers.
Wow! That is quite a task, I am most impressed by the work done to reintegrate these little elephants into the wild
It’s quite an enterprise, isn’t it. All so very careful.
I know- hats off to them
Extraordinary – bless them all.
🐘🐘🐘