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An orphaned baby elephant basks in a mud puddle at the David Sheldrick Elephant Orphanage in the national park of Nairobi, Kenya: photo by Goran Tomasevic/Reuters via The Guardian, 25 October 2014
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Elephants killed by poachers in Tsavo East national park: photo by David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust via The Guardian, 29 April 2014
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Four elephant calves were killed in the attack at Tsavo East national park in Kenya: photo by David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust via The Guardian, 29 April 2014
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David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust / Kenyan Wildlife Service Mobile Veterinary Unit attempt an elephant rescue in the field: photo by David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust, 24 October 2014
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David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust / Kenyan Wildlife Service Mobile Veterinary Unit conduct an elephant rescue in the field: photo by David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust, 24 October 2014
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David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust / Kenyan Wildlife Service Mobile Veterinary Unit treat a wounded elephant in the field: photo by David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust, 24 October 2014
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Too late to be saved? David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust / Kenyan Wildlife Service Mobile Veterinary Unit conducting an elephant rescue in the field: photo by David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust, 24 October 2014
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Orphaned baby elephants at the David Sheldrick elephant orphanage, Nairobi national park, Kenya: photo by Simon Maina/AFP via The Guardian, 12 August 2014
Charles Siebert: Elephant orphans
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Dedicated keepers at the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust's Nairobi Elephant Nursery in Kenya protect baby Shukuru from the cold and rain, and the risk of pneumonia, with a custom-made raincoat: photo by Michael Nichols via National Geographic, September 2011
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Even orphaned babies out for their morning walk from the nursery seem to understand the complex structure of elephant society. Here the oldest orphans lie down to invite the younger ones to play on top of them: photo by Michael Nichols via National Geographic, September 2011
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Too young and fragile to be integrated with the other orphans, two-week-old Wasin was swaddled in a blanket, its heft and warmth a poor substitute for her slain mother. Weeks later Wasin abruptly died of unknown causes: photo by Michael Nichols via National Geographic, September 2011
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What a scared orphan elephant needs more than anything is other elephants. The process of becoming socialized begins as soon as the worst injuries heal: photo by Michael Nichols via National Geographic, September 2011
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An orphan lies down for a post-feeding nap at the Nairobi nursery. Elephants, among the most intelligent creatures on Earth, may have no future without our help: photo by Michael Nichols via National Geographic, September 2011
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Elephants enjoy their midday ablutions near the Voi stockades in Tsavo National Park. Daily mud baths are key to elephant hygiene, offering them effective sun protection while also cleansing their skin of bugs and ticks: photo by Michael Nichols via National Geographic, September 2011
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A team of elephant carers loads a young animal onto a stretcher so it can be taken by plane to the orphanage: photo courtesy David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust via The Guardian, 12 August 2014
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An elephant with a leg wound is prepared for an X-ray: photo courtesy David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust via The Guardian, 12 August 2014
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Orphaned baby elephants play. For elephants that have witnessed their mothers being killed, the company of other elephants and being able to play is one part of essential to overcoming trauma: photo by Simon Maina/AFP via The Guardian, 12 August 2014
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Orphans Edie and Imenti play: photo by Gerry Ellis / Corbis via The Guardian, 12 August 2014
An orphaned baby elephant basks in a mud puddle at the David Sheldrick Elephant Orphanage in the national park of Nairobi, Kenya: photo by Goran Tomasevic/Reuters via The Guardian, 25 October 2014
Elephant Slaughter
Elephants killed by poachers in Tsavo East national park: photo by David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust via The Guardian, 29 April 2014
Four calves among six elephants killed in Kenyan national park
Poachers chopped tusks off three of the elephants, and hacked the face off one juvenile in Tsavo East national park
Adam Vaughn, The Guardian, 29 April 2014Poachers chopped tusks off three of the elephants, and hacked the face off one juvenile in Tsavo East national park
Six elephants were killed by poachers in a Kenyan national park last week, including four calves, one of which was so young it did not have tusks. Three suspects have since been arrested.
The incident in Tsavo East national park on Thursday, described by conservationists as demonstrating the "inhumanity" of the illegal wildlife trade, is part of a wider wave of animal deaths in Africa, driven primarily by demand for ivory and rhino horn from south-east Asia. More than 60 elephants have been killed in Kenya alone this year.
All of the of six elephants had been shot, with two adult females having their tusks hacked out. Rangers found one calf still alive by its mother, which was later put down. Two of the juveniles were left with their four-inch tusks, one did not have tusks yet and the fourth had its face hacked off and the ivory taken.
Four elephant calves were killed in the attack at Tsavo East national park in Kenya: photo by David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust via The Guardian, 29 April 2014
Officials from the Kenya Wildlife Service said three suspects were arrested on Saturday following a tracking operation by air and ground, during which rangers came under "heavy fire" from the poaching gang. The suspects were due in court on Monday.
Ivory is believed to be worth around $2,000 on the black market, which led to around 22,000 African elephants being killed in 2012. More than 40 countries met in February in London to agree to tackle the global illegal wildlife trade, which is estimated to be worth billions of pounds a year.
Rob Brandford, director of the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust, which works in the park, said: “Yet again we are confronted by the graphic reality of a murdered family of elephants –- six members gunned down to fuel the insatiable demand for ivory that is primarily driven by countries in the far east. The greed and ignorance for life is astounding."
An aerial survey of the Tsavo East national park this year found it is home to around 11,000 elephants.
Elephant Rescue
David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust / Kenyan Wildlife Service Mobile Veterinary Unit attempt an elephant rescue in the field: photo by David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust, 24 October 2014
A Comprehensive Report from the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust / Kenyan Wildlife Service Mobile Veterinary Units, 24 October 2014
During the July to September 3-month reporting period the DSWT in partnership with the Kenya Wildlife Service and their four dedicated KWS field veterinary officers, treated 103 wildlife cases.
David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust / Kenyan Wildlife Service Mobile Veterinary Unit conduct an elephant rescue in the field: photo by David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust, 24 October 2014
The majority of these cases treated by the Tsavo, Mara, Meru or Amboseli Veterinary Units included elephants; and out of 65 elephants treated overall, 18 were treated for poisoned arrow wounds, 13 for spear wounds, 5 for bullet wounds and 5 for snare injuries, whilst other cases included post-mortems, natural causes and non-medical cases.
David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust / Kenyan Wildlife Service Mobile Veterinary Unit treat a wounded elephant in the field: photo by David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust, 24 October 2014
Other wildlife cases involved lions, black and white rhinos, buffalos and a number of other species. Out of all of these emergency operations 73% of the treatments had a successful outcome, whilst 18% of the cases were sadly reached too late to save.
Too late to be saved? David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust / Kenyan Wildlife Service Mobile Veterinary Unit conducting an elephant rescue in the field: photo by David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust, 24 October 2014
Those 4% of cases given a poor prognosis have been monitored by all parties involved in the operation, with one of the Mobile Veterinary Units close at hand should a follow up treatment be needed. Above and beyond these permanent mobile veterinary operations the DSWT/KWS Sky Vet program has also been active in supporting the field units when cases reported are unable to be attended.
(via DSWT)
Orphaned baby elephants at the David Sheldrick elephant orphanage, Nairobi national park, Kenya: photo by Simon Maina/AFP via The Guardian, 12 August 2014
Charles Siebert: Elephant orphans
The plight of elephants has become so dire that their greatest enemy -- humans -- is also their only hope, a topsy-turvy reality that moved a woman named Daphne Sheldrick to establish the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust's [Nairobi] Nursery -- an orphan-elephant rescue and rehabilitation center -- back in 1987. Sheldrick is fourth-generation Kenya-born and has spent the better part of her life tending wild animals. Her husband was David Sheldrick, the renowned naturalist and founding warden of Tsavo East National Park who died of a heart attack in 1977. She's reared abandoned baby buffalo, dik-diks, impalas, zebras, warthogs, and black rhinos, among others, but no creature has beguiled her more than elephants.
Spend enough time around elephants and it's difficult not to anthropomorphize their behavior. "Elephants are very human animals," says Sheldrick, sitting one afternoon on the back porch of her house at the edge of the nursery grounds, the wide, acacia-dotted plains of Nairobi National Park sprawling in the distance. "Their emotions are exactly the same as ours. They've lost their families, have seen their mothers slaughtered, and they come here filled with aggression -- devastated, broken, and grieving. They suffer from nightmares and sleeplessness."
Dedicated keepers at the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust's Nairobi Elephant Nursery in Kenya protect baby Shukuru from the cold and rain, and the risk of pneumonia, with a custom-made raincoat: photo by Michael Nichols via National Geographic, September 2011
What makes this particular moment in the fraught history of elephant-human relations so remarkable is that the long-accrued anecdotal evidence of the elephant's extraordinary intelligence is being borne out by science. Studies show that structures in the elephant brain are strikingly similar to those in humans. MRI scans of an elephant's brain suggest a large hippocampus, the component in the mammalian brain linked to memory and an important part of its limbic system, which is involved in processing emotions. The elephant brain has also been shown to possess an abundance of the specialized neurons known as spindle cells, which are thought to be associated with self-awareness, empathy, and social awareness in humans. Elephants have even passed the mirror test of self-recognition, something only humans, and some great apes and dolphins, had been known to do.
Even orphaned babies out for their morning walk from the nursery seem to understand the complex structure of elephant society. Here the oldest orphans lie down to invite the younger ones to play on top of them: photo by Michael Nichols via National Geographic, September 2011
This common neurobiology has prompted some scientists to explore whether young elephants that have experienced assaults on their psyches may be exhibiting signs of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), just like orphaned children in the wake of war or genocide. Gay Bradshaw, a psychologist and the director of the Kerulos Center in Oregon, has brought the latest insights from human neuroscience and psychology to bear on startling field observations of elephant behavior. She suspects that some threatened elephant populations might be suffering from chronic stress and trauma brought on by human encroachment and killing.
Before the international ivory trade ban in 1989, poaching took a steep toll on many elephant populations and in some instances significantly altered their social structure because poachers tended to target older elephants. Field biologists found that the number of older matriarchs, female caregivers, and bulls in vulnerable groups had fallen drastically. In Uganda, for instance, one study reported that many females between the ages of 15 and 25 had no close family members whatsoever.
Elephant Babies, David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust Elephant Orphanage, Nairobi, Kenya. I visited the orphanage last year and experienced the joy of watching the elephants play and bond with one another. I saw an opportunity in this group to capture the beauty of these babies in a montage of texture, shape, and monochromatic colors: photo and caption by Susan Pierson via National Geographic, November 2014
In the decades since the ban, some populations have stabilized, though most elephants remain threatened by human encroachment. As poaching has flared up in the past five years in the Congo Basin and large swaths of central and eastern Africa, many elephant families there have lost most of their adult females. Where such social upheaval exists, calves are being raised by ever more inexperienced females. An increasing number of young orphaned elephants, many of which have witnessed the death of a parent through culling or at the hands of poachers, are coming of age in the absence of the traditional support system. "The loss of older elephants," says Bradshaw, "and the extreme psychological and physical trauma of witnessing the massacres of their family members interferes with a young elephant's normal development."
Bradshaw speculates that this early trauma, combined with the breakdown in social structure, may account for some instances of aberrant elephant behavior that have been reported by field biologists. Between 1992 and 1997, for example, young male elephants in Pilanesberg Game Reserve in South Africa killed more than 40 rhinoceroses -- an unusual level of aggression -- and in some cases had attempted to mount them. The young elephants were adolescent males that had witnessed their families being shot in cullings at Kruger National Park -- sanctioned killings to keep elephant populations under control. At that time it was common practice for such orphaned elephant babies to be tethered to the bodies of their dead relatives until they could be rounded up for translocation to new territories. Once moved to Pilanesberg, the orphans matured without the support of any adult males. "Young males often follow older, sexually active males around," says veteran field biologist Joyce Poole, "appearing to study what they do. These youngsters had no such role models."
For Allan Schore, an expert on human trauma disorders at UCLA who has co-authored papers with Bradshaw, the behavior of these elephants conforms to a diagnosis of PTSD in humans. "A large body of research shows that the neurobiological mechanisms of attachment are found in many mammals, including humans and elephants," he explains. "The emotional relationship between the mother and her offspring impacts the wiring of the infants' developing brain. When early experiences are traumatic, there is a thinning down of the developing brain circuits, especially in areas that process emotional information and regulate stress. That means less resilience and an enduring deficit in aggression regulation, social communication, and empathy."
One effort to repair the torn fabric of an elephant group lends further support to the idea that early trauma and a lack of role models can lead to aggression: After Joyce Poole suggested that park rangers in South Africa introduce six older bull elephants into Pilanesberg's population of about 85 elephants, the aberrant behavior of the marauding adolescent males -- and their premature hormonal changes -- abruptly stopped.
If elephants can wound like us, they can heal like us as well, perhaps more readily. With humans acting as stand-ins for their mothers, along with the help of the other nursery elephants, the majority of the orphans that survive recover to become fully functional wild elephants again. To date, Sheldrick's nursery has successfully raised more than a hundred orphan elephants. They have returned to the wild in wary, halting, half measures at first, having become "homo-pachyderms," caught between a deep devotion to their human caregivers and the irresistible call of their true selves.
excerpt from: Orphans No More: After the trauma of attack and loss comes healing -- and a richer understanding of the emotions and intelligence of elephants
Charles Siebert, National Geographic, September 2011
Charles Siebert, National Geographic, September 2011
A team of elephant carers loads a young animal onto a stretcher so it can be taken by plane to the orphanage: photo courtesy David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust via The Guardian, 12 August 2014
Malnourished and wounded, this orphaned baby elephant receives emergency treatment at the scene of the rescue: photo courtesy David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust via The Guardian, 12 August 2014
An elephant with a leg wound is prepared for an X-ray: photo courtesy David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust via The Guardian, 12 August 2014
A team transports an elephant in northern Kenya. They will undertake a rescue when elephants are orphaned by poaching, habitat destruction and human conflict; they are often malnourished, dehydrated and weak and can have a multitude of injuries caused by bullets, snares, machetes and even spears: photo courtesy David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust via The Guardian, 12 August 2014
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Natumi, four weeks old, being walked by keepers. The first few weeks after a rescue are critical. Many orphans arrive extremely weak, emaciated and in a state of shock: photo by Gerry Ellis / Corbis via The Guardian, 12 August 2014
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Wasin is approximately two weeks old. Carers replicate an orphaned elephant’s lost family with a human equivalent, providing 24-hour care. This includes regular milk feeds, travelling with them as a group during the day and sleeping in a stable with them at night to provide reassurance: photo by Michael Nichols/National Geographic via The Guardian, 12 August 2014
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Wasin is approximately two weeks old. For the youngest of rescues, blankets serve to mimic a mother elephant’s undercarriage during milk feeds. Several young elephants will not feed without their blankets which provide a sense of security and comfort: photo by Michael Nichols/National Geographic The Guardian, 12 August 2014
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Depending on where an orphaned elephant is found, an aeroplane usually needs to be chartered to move the elephant to the nursery: photo courtesy David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust via The Guardian, 12 August 2014
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An rescued elephant’s trunk. Trapped in a man-made well, this orphan had been attacked by predators during the night before it was spotted and rescued: photo courtesy David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust via The Guardian, 12 August 2014
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This year the charity has rescued six orphaned elephants. Director Rob Brandford said: “In 2003, we rescued 11 orphans. Last year we rescued 48 orphans, an unusually high number and the majority victims of poaching, but even that number is likely only a fraction of those out there.”: photo courtesy David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust via The Guardian, 12 August 2014
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Natumi, four weeks old, being walked by keepers. The first few weeks after a rescue are critical. Many orphans arrive extremely weak, emaciated and in a state of shock: photo by Gerry Ellis / Corbis via The Guardian, 12 August 2014
Wasin is approximately two weeks old. Carers replicate an orphaned elephant’s lost family with a human equivalent, providing 24-hour care. This includes regular milk feeds, travelling with them as a group during the day and sleeping in a stable with them at night to provide reassurance: photo by Michael Nichols/National Geographic via The Guardian, 12 August 2014
Wasin is approximately two weeks old. For the youngest of rescues, blankets serve to mimic a mother elephant’s undercarriage during milk feeds. Several young elephants will not feed without their blankets which provide a sense of security and comfort: photo by Michael Nichols/National Geographic The Guardian, 12 August 2014
Depending on where an orphaned elephant is found, an aeroplane usually needs to be chartered to move the elephant to the nursery: photo courtesy David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust via The Guardian, 12 August 2014
An rescued elephant’s trunk. Trapped in a man-made well, this orphan had been attacked by predators during the night before it was spotted and rescued: photo courtesy David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust via The Guardian, 12 August 2014
Aerial surveillance ensures herds with calves can be better protected against poaching activities, and any lone elephant calves can be spotted and rescued: photo courtesy David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust via The Guardian, 12 August 2014
This year the charity has rescued six orphaned elephants. Director Rob Brandford said: “In 2003, we rescued 11 orphans. Last year we rescued 48 orphans, an unusually high number and the majority victims of poaching, but even that number is likely only a fraction of those out there.”: photo courtesy David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust via The Guardian, 12 August 2014
Two-month-old orphaned baby elephant Ajabu is given a dust-bath in the red earth after being fed milk from a bottle by a keeper: photo by Ben Curtis / APvia The Guardian, 12 August 2014
Orphaned baby elephants play. For elephants that have witnessed their mothers being killed, the company of other elephants and being able to play is one part of essential to overcoming trauma: photo by Simon Maina/AFP via The Guardian, 12 August 2014
Orphans Edie and Imenti play: photo by Gerry Ellis / Corbis via The Guardian, 12 August 2014