Poachers filling up elephant orphanage
Matt Brown, The National, April 5, 2009
NAIROBI, Kenya - When Ndii was seven weeks old, she fell through a manhole and became stuck in a pipeline near Tsavo National Park, Kenya’s largest wildlife sanctuary.
Her mother, a 4,000-kilogram African elephant, held vigil above the hole where her calf was trapped as the rest of the herd moved on into the dense brush.
Finally, after a frustrating day of stomping around outside the hole and bellowing in grief for her lost calf, the mother realised there was nothing she could do to save little Ndii. She gave up hope and slunk back into the bush to rejoin the herd.
A team of rangers watched as the mother left and found Ndii still alive down the hole. By the time the men pulled her out with ropes, the herd and Ndii’s mother were long gone.
Baby elephants cannot survive alone in the wild. Ndii would have been eaten by a predator, become sick in the cold night or starved to death without her mother’s milk. So the rescue team transferred Ndii to Nairobi, where she now lives at the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust, the only orphanage in the world for abandoned African elephants.
As the human population expands and people compete with animals for limited resources, humans and wildlife are often in conflict. In Kenya, pastoral tribes kill animals that threaten their herds of cattle. The cows introduce diseases that kill wildlife. Human infrastructure in wild areas, such as wells and pipelines, accidentally trap unsuspecting animals. And poaching for meat and, increasingly, ivory is on the rise.
“Conservation is becoming more difficult,” said Dame Daphne Sheldrick, a conservationist and founder of the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust. “Wildlife is depleting at an alarming rate. There is a huge human-wildlife conflict. We are in a bad phase at the moment.”
The trust, which is named after Mrs Sheldrick’s late husband, the first warden of Tsavo National Park, is currently caring for 15 baby elephants, more than at any other time, in its nursery on the outskirts of Nairobi National Park.
A team watches over the elephants 24 hours a day. The calves wear blankets to keep them warm and drink milk from bottles. They spend their days grazing in the bush and sleep in custom built pens at night. Their keepers even sleep with them.
“It’s like sleeping with a newborn baby,” said Edwin Lusichi, the head keeper. “They want to play with you at night. They don’t want to sleep. You have to wake up all the time to feed them.”
Every abandoned elephant in the sanctuary is here because of humans. Some of the elephants became stuck in man-made objects. Others had parents that died at the hands of poachers.
“We have more elephant orphans now than ever before,” said Mrs Sheldrick, 74, whose parents moved to Kenya from England at the beginning of the 20th century. “Poaching is escalating. Ivory is used as a currency.”
Many conservationists blame the Convention on the International Trade in Endangered Species (Cites) for the rise in ivory demand. Though the trade in ivory is illegal, last year the convention granted China and Japan permission to buy stockpiles of ivory at auction from four southern African countries.
Illegal ivory, such as that poached from Kenya, can easily be laundered through this auctioned ivory, conservationists say.
“I believe that auctioning the ivory stockpiles will cause poaching to increase particularly in the central, eastern and western African elephant range states where poaching is not yet properly controlled,” Richard Leakey, a renowned Kenyan conservationist, wrote recently in the Daily Telegraph newspaper in London. “The entry of China, the destination for most of the illegal ivory in the market, is an ill-advised move that will only serve to open up the illegal ivory markets.”
The Kenya Wildlife Service has seen an increase in poaching, especially in key elephant zones. One reason for the rise in poaching is the demand from China, a KWS official said.
“There is a growing demand for ivory,” said the official on condition of anonymity because the official was not authorised to speak to the media. “The demand is coming from the east, from China.”
In 2008, 98 elephant carcasses were found with their tusks removed compared with 48 in 2007, according to KWS. In the past year, at least eight Chinese citizens have been arrested trying to smuggle ivory out of Nairobi’s international airport, most recently in February.
The Chinese Embassy in Nairobi said in a statement it is trying to educate its citizens living in Africa not to engage in the ivory trade.
Tough economic times in Kenya are also driving people to take up poaching, Mrs Sheldrick said. Poachers can make about US$60 (Dh220) for one kilogram of ivory.
“That’s a lot of money for people without anything,” she said.
Mrs Sheldrick is hopeful that the next generation of Kenyans will value wildlife, making conservation efforts easier.
“I think there is more hope here than in other countries,” said Mrs Sheldrick, who was honoured by Britain for her conservation work in 2006. “The younger generation is much more aware of environmental issues. They are growing up with a culture of caring for animals.”
This is apparent during the daily mud baths at the elephant orphanage. Between 11am and noon each day, dozens of Kenyan schoolchildren flock to the orphanage to watch the elephants parade around and wallow in the mud. The event also attracts tourists, many of whom pay at least $50 annually to help sponsor an elephant.
This week, Ndii was especially playful during one of the mud baths. She kicked up dirt, butted heads with the other elephants and strutted in front of a crowd of adoring tourists.
At seven months old, Ndii is much stronger now than when she arrived. Soon, she will be released back into the wild, which is bittersweet for Mr Lusichi, the head keeper.
“It’s sad having spent so much time with them, but there comes a time when you have to let them go into the wild,” he said. “But when I think about it, there is joy in my heart because we have rescued the animal. We are giving them another chance at life.”