At Kenyan orphanage, baby elephants find new life, and love

Three-year old baby elephant Luggard. (AFP pic)



 He had been shot twice

One bullet pierced his left front foot, and another shattered his right, hind femur just above the knee joint.

The calf was discovered “too late for successful surgery,” said Edwin Lusichi, 42, head keeper at the Sheldrick Wildlife Trust (SWT) elephant nursery in Nairobi National Park, Luggard’s new home.



Each calf at the nursery has a tragic story: orphaned by poachers, drought, or in conflict with humans encroaching ever further into the few wild places left.

“We rescue them from just a few days old,” DSWT administrator Kirsty Smith told AFP.


She was found lost and alone in the Maasai Mara game reserve, likely after her family clashed with humans.

“Sometimes the elephants get into the communities, farms and homes, people fight them, chase them away, and in the process of the fight they (the babies) get separated from their families,” Lusichi explained.

Without its mother, an elephant calf will die

They are weaned between the ages of five and 10, when they enter adolescence. Adulthood starts around the age of 18, and left undisturbed, elephants can live to be 70.

But poaching claims many prematurely.

Killing for ornaments



He points to Enkesha, a tiny two-year-old


Enkesha was rescued, stitched up, and after a long rehabilitation, now uses her badly-scarred trunk almost as normal, ripping up grass to eat and sucking up water.


But until then, they receive 24-7 care with a bottle feeding every three hours.


“It’s similar to spending a night in a bedroom with… a human baby,” said Julius Shivegha, 43, one of the caretakers.

“We have to make sure that they are well-covered with a blanket, to keep them warm… They keep waking up for the milk… We are around for reassurance and for company, just to make sure they don’t feel lonely.”

The bond between animal and human is a close one.


They call their charges by name, and the elephants respond.


‘Sometimes we just cuddle’


“Sometimes we just cuddle them, we hug them. Some of them will keep on trying to just grab your hands or suck your fingers like a pacifier. All of this makes them really close to us… We are their mothers.”

This makes for a “bitter-sweet” separation: when the elephants graduate from the nursery, they go to one of three reintegration centres at Tsavo.




Ending attacks on elephants will be difficult in a part of the world where poverty and the danger posed to human life and property by wild elephant herds, are seen as justification.



Also, crucially, “let’s try and stop the end product market, let’s tell people to stop buying (ivory),” he urged.