Daphne Sheldrick says, “Elephants are like us, but better.”

I’ve heard Daphne Sheldrick, the world’s expert on raising orphaned baby elephants, say on many occasions that “Elephants are like us…but better.”

 

Growing up I only knew elephants from reading Babar The Elephant books, and going to zoos. Later I would see my first wild elephants in Africa.

 

But it was while visiting the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust on the edge of Nairobi’s National Park in Kenya that my love affair with the world’s largest land mammal really began in earnest.

 

Today I am back at the Sheldrick center for my fifth or sixth visit. I can’t get enough of the place, and make a point of visiting whenever I am passing through Nairobi, as I am today, on my way to lead co-lead a safari in Tanzania with author Tina Welling.

 

I’m waiting among a crowd of people, including about 100 local school children who have never before seen an elephant. We are gathered around a roped off mud hole. 

 

Out of the woods walk local African men dressed in blue-green coveralls followed by a line of elephants the color of the red earth we are standing on.  Some of the animals run kicking a ball, some lag behind, others play with the one in fronts tail.

 

 

 

Their excitement is palpable; their energy contagious and…adorable. The ellies have come to play, wallow in the mud, and take their mid-morning feeding of the milk solution Daphne Sheldrick perfected over years of trail and error.

 

 

 

 

If the Sheldrick Center had volunteer positions I would sign up immediately. I envy the keepers who hand feed the elephants from gallon sized “baby” bottles, and at night sleep in the stalls with the baby elephants who need almost constant contact until the age of three.

 

 

 

I listen to the keepers tell each baby elephants story of tragedy that brought them here to the   orphanage. This one fell down a well and was so dehydrated when she was rescued. That one over there watched its whole family being poached and was found vigilantly standing beside her dead mothers body. This little one is still so fragile she wears a blanket to keep her warm even though it’s 80 degrees today.

 

Each story is as heartbreaking as the next.

 

Daphne Sheldrick believes in Re-Wilding

But there is a happy ending for most of the 200 elephants that have been brought here over the years. Daphne says, “There is a saying: If you love an animal, set it free, and if it loves you, it will come back to you to thank you from time to time.” She says she has found that to be very true.

 

After five years at the orphanage (or when they are deemed ready) the young elephants are transferred to holding areas in Tsavo National Park where they will eventually walk back to the freedom that is their right as a wild elephant. On many occasions the “re-wilded” elephants will return to the this place of transition to say Hi to a keeper, or ask for help when they have a festering wound for instance. They never forget the caregivers that saved their lives.

 

In September I am leading an elephant conservation focused safari and we will visit both the orphanage and the stockades in Tsavo to witness the elephants pilgrimage back to the wild. It will be a magical and transformative experience.

 Join me  for intimate encounters with these highly sensitive, emotional and loyal beings and learn why Daphne Sheldrick says humans have much we need to emulate about elephants.  Or foster an orphan elephant on their journey back to the wild.

 

Meanwhile if you haven’t yet read Daphne Sheldrick’s memoir, you are in for a treat.

Feature image photo credit: Sarah Hoffman.