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Published: November 6th 2013
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The Infants
The one with the blanket in front is only 7 weeks old and the one behind is my adopted elephant Shujaa with is "mommy" I've had a busy time since I arrive back in Nairobi. The work continues at the office to complete the accounting and get the company in order to be able to sell and so there has been little time to do anything else! However, on the weekend in the mornings Dad and I took a break and went to do some touristy things! We went to the Kenya Wildlife Services orphanage where animals that are rescued as babies are hand raised and then looked after for the rest of their lives. Although, it looks a lot like a zoo the men that look after the animals have a very personal relationship with each one of them. Each animal has a story associated with them and one was a baby Mangabee monkey from the Congo with a special story related to our family
When my sister in law as in the Congo she saw the baby monkey whose mother had been killed and was being sold in the market. She wanted to save the monkey and so she purchased it hand carried it with her back to Nairobi. My brother and her hand raised the infant monkey and made sure it
Look Ma! No hands!
lol sorry for the cheese, couldn't help myself, this one was too cute not needing to have the bottle held and then running to take another babies bottle when the "Mom" wasn't looking was healthy before handing it over to the Kenya Wildlife Service to look after for the rest of its life. The Mangabee monkey is very friendly and sweet natured and when the keepers found out who we were, they were ecstatic and wanted photos with the muzugas (white folk) that brought them their favorite monkey - they named him Barack Obama!! He is very gentle and likes to have his chest and arms scratched and then he holds your hand and calmly starts to groom your arm hair and works up to your head hair. He is now over 10 years old and in good health and the darling of the orphanage. It was special to hear their personal stories about Barack and all the other animals as they lead me around to say how they had saved the animals. One of the other ones I really loved seeing was Wendy, a Cheetah who just wanted to rub up against the keeper and get love and scratches.
The next day we went to Sheldricks Trust to visit the baby elephants there. The Trust was setup in 1977 to save orphaned elephants and rhinos who's mothers were killed either for
The Toddlers
These elephants are between 4 months and 24 months and are kept in family units of 4 with their human Moms. They live in the bush during the day learning how to be proper elephants but are brought back to drink bottles every three hours their horns or ivory, for encroaching on human settlements and farm lands, or who died natural deaths. Elephants typically drink their mothers milk for a full 2 years before they are weaned and can support themselves on greens alone, therefore any elephant who loses his mother before the two years are up will die. This trust is run entirely by donations and part of how they raise money to support their babies is to allow tourists to come in every day and see the babies fed milk at 11 AM for an hour. They feed the littlest ones first and so when I walked down to the feeding area I saw three babies 7 weeks and 9 weeks old. In addition to these three infants, there are 30 other elephants there at the moment and each one has a name and a story and their keepers/mothers will tell you all about them individually. The littlest elephant was found wandering by the Mobassa highway by itself, it was hiding in the shadows of trucks trying to find comfort like it would hide in its mothers shadow. The other two had their mothers killed by poachers and were found weak by the
Curious
This baby really liked to interact with the tourists and would reach his trunk out to tease us remains of their bodies. When they are rescued they are assigned a "mother" or a keeper who will stay with that elephant 24/7 and raise and it and teach it to be a proper elephant so it can be slowly introduced back into the wild over a period of 5-8 years in Keyna's largest park Tsavo. The elephants never forget thier experiences from the moment they are born, but can learn from thier peer and human mothers how to be part of a family unit and survive in the wilderness as adult elephants.
The Trust's method has been very successful over the 36 years it's been saving these victims. It is not often I'll see something that so deeply effects my heart, but these beautiful little elephants wouldn't be alive if it weren't for these people and the donations required to keep the Trust running. So, please if you are thinking about what to get someone for Christmas instead of buying an item from a retail store, ADOPT ONE OF THESE ELEPHANTS! I'm going to list the website for you to look at when you're done reading this, but for $50 once or recurring every year you can adopt
Albino
This little guy is actually an albino with blue eyes and blond hair, i didn't catch his name. The deep red mud mostly masks light skin though! one of the elephants at the orphanage and they will send you a photograph, tell you it's personal story, and even send you a monthly update from the elephant's "mothers" daily journal so you can know exactly how your elephant is doing. Should you ever find yourself in Kenya you can visit with your elephant while it's being fed, or when before it goes to bed at night and then when it is finally taken to Tsavo you can even go and they will help you to find your elephant out in the wild with its new adopted herd. The horrible truth is one elephant is still killed every 15 minutes . It takes around $10,000 a month to raise each individual elephant, so please spread the word. Even if you can't foster one of these little guys please boycott all ivory. I chose to adopt Shujaa who is only 9 weeks old so I can continue to support him from this early ago through to his release.
OK, now that I've made my plea, enjoy the photographs. They were little rascals, the keepers have to chase after them and keep them busy to stay out of trouble just
Bottle Time
They slurp down the each bottle in less than a minute! like human toddlers! You can see as you look into their eyes just how intelligent they are and even knowing their tragic stories it was hard not to laugh out loud as you watched them play together and with the keepers and even the tourists!
http://www.sheldrickwildlifetrust.org/asp/fostering.asp#whatyouget
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