Mindstates
Giving Love And Life
Orphanage Gives Baby Elephants Another Chance at Life
by Lucy Watkins
Elephants may very well be the most beloved of African mammals. Sadly, their populations have been reduced by nearly 50 percent due to the ivory trade, hunting, poaching, and human encroachment on their natural habitats. As a result, much of Africa no longer sees their massive statures or hears their trumpeting sounds as they walk silently over the land.
Though their numbers are dwindling, African elephants have friends and protectors in Dr. Dame Daphne Sheldrick and her dedicated staff at The David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust. Named after her late husband David, the famous naturalist and founder Warden of Kenya’s Tsavo East National Park, the Wildlife Trust works tirelessly to protect and save African wildlife. One of the trust’s many endeavors, the Orphan’s Project, provides a sanctuary where elephants and other African animals are brought to live and heal under the expert staff’s loving care.
Experts and animal lovers recognize these enormous creatures are more than mere circus performers carrying scantily clad beauties in their dexterous trunks. According to Dr. Sheldrick, wild elephant populations have many environmental purposes and serve a vital role in the health of the African landscape.
“Elephants create water holes and make trails that lead to water sources by choosing the best routes through mountainous and difficult terrain which cannot be bettered by a human surveyor. They recycle nutrients locked in wood by felling trees and shrubs, and plant a new generation of others in their dung, dispersing it far and wide in their enormous wanderings.”
While the Orphan’s Project serves many animals species, elephants are a bulk of the population in residence. Visitors to the Orphan’s Project quickly note the relationships between the human caretakers, their charges, and the elephants themselves. Time and experience has provided staff the knowledge of elephant communication as they bear witness to the relationships developed between the animal themselves and between the animals and humans living on the compound. As human awareness expands toward the importance of other creatures, more and more is being learned about the emotional, social, and genetic makeup of these, the largest mammals on earth. There is much to be said about the similarities between elephants and people.
Dr. Sheldrick explains, “Elephants mirror humans in terms of emotion, sense of family, sense of death. They possess all the best qualities of the human animal, and few of the bad. Humans need to understand that they, too, are animals, and nature puts many species on a different branch of life, but in their own way, they are equally as sophisticated. Elephants, dolphins, and whales are identical to humans in terms of emotion, far better in terms of caring and compassion, and are peace-loving creatures.”
The work of the Orphan’s Project staff begins as soon as they learn of orphaned young. The team immediately goes into action transporting orphaned elephants to the sanctuary in Tsavo East National Park. The staff’s initial focus is on the health and wellbeing of the animal.
Initially housed separately from the other elephants in the nursery, newcomers are given their own space where keepers tend to their immediate needs and remain with the new tenant throughout the night, feeding and soothing the new charge. It is common for elephants in stalls next to the new arrival to reach their trunks through openings in the wall to check on the baby elephant. Keepers and staff know this compassion will ultimately offer the baby elephant a new place in a foster herd.
The first night in the orphanage is usually long and restless for both the orphan and its caretaker. After covering the new arrival with a blanket and putting sunscreen on the animal’s ears to protect it from the hot African sun, something that is normally done by the shade created by the larger, adult females, the new arrival is taken into the yard to meet its foster family.
The excitement and anticipation of the Orphan Project’s older residents is palpable as they enter the yard. Trunks tenderly investigate the new arrival as keepers keep a close eye on the goings on of this introductory moment. In greeting, elephants put their trunks in the mouth of the new charge, an act which is the equivalent of an elephant kiss, according to Dr. Sheldrick. These greetings mark the beginning of long-lasting foster family relationships that will serve to replace the orphaned elephants’ lost herds.
Often requiring as many as 10 years’ worth of dedicated care from the Trust staff, these elephants are slowly given access to established herds in the area. Even after assimilating into the wild herds, former charges often revisit the sanctuary slowly taking permanent residence in the wild. The greatest reward for the Orphan’s Project staff is to witness a recently introduced elephant merging into a herd and becoming a mother.
The Trust’s ultimate goal is to make it possible for these creatures to roam freely on the land without human interference, an undertaking larger than any elephant herd when considering the struggles between the government, the expanding human population and the needs of the elephants.
According to Dr. Sheldrick, “Elephants have a genetic memory, and ancient migratory routes are imprinted in their brains, which today are densely populated by a burgeoning human population. Safe corridors must be provided so that elephants can move out of some of the protected areas. Unless this can be achieved, the African elephant will continue its decline, until just a few remain. Elephants need more space than is currently available to them.”
Dr. Sheldrick implores people to stop buying ivory and suggests, “Humans should boycott countries that trade in Ivory and those that sell it for commercial gain.” According to Dr. Sheldrick, “Rearing elephants is a long-term and expensive commitment and cannot be shouldered without a great deal of outside help, which, fortunately, we get from many caring people world-wide.”
Lucy Watkins is a freelance writer in Texas. For more information about the Wildlife Trust, visit sheldrickwildlifetrust.org.