David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust, Kenya: Where you can visit an elephant orphanage in Africa

We’re sorry, this feature is currently unavailable. We’re working to restore it. Please try again later.

Advertisement

This was published 5 years ago

David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust, Kenya: Where you can visit an elephant orphanage in Africa

By Nina Karnikowski
Updated
Young orphan Elephants (Loxodonta africana) out on a walk. David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust Nairobi Elephant Nursery, Kenya.

Young orphan Elephants (Loxodonta africana) out on a walk. David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust Nairobi Elephant Nursery, Kenya.Credit: Alamy

They arrive in single file, bouncing out of the forest with all the enthusiasm of kindergarten kids finishing their first day of school. But there are no mothers waiting for these 20 baby elephants. They are all orphans, and it's almost impossible to keep the emotions at bay as we watch them toddle into the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust, regarded as the most successful elephant orphanage in the world, after a day out feeding in Nairobi national park.

As the elephants settle into their enclosures, I walk around looking for "my" baby. I've been on safari in Kenya with Bench Africa for the past six days, and as part of my itinerary they have adopted me an elephant. It takes only a few minutes to track down Mapia, a two-year-old calf rescued from near death in drought-affected Tsavo East, Kenya's largest national park, after his mother died from starvation in late 2017.

Today he looks healthy and happy, chomping on fresh green branches laid on the earthen floor of his enclosure. His keeper tells me he's as strong and social as he appears, and that he'll live here in the nursery for three years before being reintroduced to the wild. As I pat his rough trunk through the bars I feel my despair for East Africa's threatened elephant population, about half of which has been lost in the past decade, dissipate a little.

The Sheldrick Trust Elephant Orphans Project in Nairobi, Kenya's capital, east Africa.

The Sheldrick Trust Elephant Orphans Project in Nairobi, Kenya's capital, east Africa. Credit: Shutterstock

Just two months before my arrival in Nairobi, the founder of this trust, conservationist Daphne Sheldrick, died, making our visit a timely look at the legacy she left behind. In its 42 years of operation, the trust, named by Sheldrick for her late husband and the founding warden of Tsavo East, David Sheldrick, has raised more than 200 elephants orphaned mostly by human wildlife conflict, drought and poaching, and reintegrated them back into the wild herds of Tsavo. It employs more than 400 local staff, who also run anti-poaching teams, a mobile veterinary unit and aerial surveillance. For a minimum contribution of about $10, travellers like us can visit, a reminder of how tourism can sometimes work as an engine for meaningful conservation.

As I walk around the stalls, I watch some of the babies being bottle fed by their green jumpsuit-clad keepers, some of whom actually sleep in the stalls with the elephants until they get too big, while others are wrapped in blankets against the evening chill. I meet Edwin Lusichi out the front of one of the stalls, the trust's 32-year-old head keeper, who has been working here since he was 13.

"If this project didn't exist, the elephants you see here now would be dead," he replies when I ask what has kept him here for so many years. "That means there are some lives we have saved – not a very big percentage, but at least it's something."

Does he get upset when he has to release them back into the wild, I ask? "I miss them, of course, but I'm the happiest person because I've achieved my target. I've saved a life, and they're going back into the natural habitat where they belong."

It's an attitude I try hard to mimic as I stroke Mapia's trunk one last time, then walk back out into the streets of Nairobi.

Advertisement

TRIP NOTES

Nina Karnikowski travelled as a guest of Bench Africa.

MORE

traveller.com.au/kenya

benchafrica.com

FLY

Emirates flies to Nairobi via Dubai, for about $1,500 return. See emirates.com

TOUR

To mark their 50th anniversary, Africa travel specialist Bench Africa has launched an Eight-day Connoisseur Signature Safari Special, including three nights at Elephant Bedroom Camp in Samburu National Reserve, and four nights at Mara Ngenche in Masai Mara National Park. From $6999 a person, twin share, international flights not included. Visit benchafrica.com

Sign up for the Traveller Deals newsletter

Get exclusive travel deals delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up now.

Most viewed on Traveller

Loading