The Sheldrick Wildlife Trust in Nairobi houses orphaned baby elephants (and rhinos - but these are elusive).
I went to visit them on a Sunday morning. I edited this short video, taken with a point-and-shoot camera, with a program called VideoSpirit Pro (trial version). I'm not sure I fully understood the software because the audio cuts out under a few clips. This is definitely not Final Cut, but the elephants are cute anyway.
When
a baby elephant (anywhere between birth and three years) is found alone
in the wild, the Wildlife Trust is called in to rescue it and raise it
at the orphanage before helping it to re-integrate into the wild.
The re-integration
process takes from age three to age eight. All of them, regardless of
where they are found, are re-integrated into herds in Tsavo National
Park. At the moment, there are 19 elephants at the Trust and two rhinos.
Some
of the babies were found at the bottom of wells. They can fall in and
their mothers are unable to rescue them, so they are left behind. Nearby
people will hear them crying and call the wildlife authorities. Many
elephants were orphaned by poachers who killed their mothers for their
ivory tusks. A few were left orphaned when their mothers died from
starvation in drought-affected areas of the country.
When
they are old enough, they will slowly re-integrate into established
herds in Tsavo. This process takes a long time because the baby
elephants must develop a new "mistrust" for human beings after spending
their infancy with them.
Watch and smile! These elephants are under 18 months old.
