David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust

Another site very near to our house worth visiting is the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust. This is a haven for abandoned elephants and rhinos. This charitable organization rescues orphaned elephants and rhinoceros, and raises them until an age where they can be released back into the wild.  The elephants are brought in groups based on their age into a "pen", to chew on branches, drink water and if it's hot out, play in the mud to keep cool.  The "pen", consists of a rope, loosely strung between fence posts about knee height.  Some of the elephants were really playful and would come over to the crowd of people and want to be pet.  One young one kept leaning over onto a few people, nearly knocking them to the ground, it was quite entertaining.  The staff then give a brief bio of each of the elephants, including where they were rescued from and how long they have been at the Wildlife Trust.  The elephants remain at the Wildlife Trust until they are 3+ years, and then are reintroduced into the wild.

 While the elephants were being introduced and the Wildlife Trust was being explained to us, some warthogs wondered up behind us and were foraging for food.  Apparently they are not that scared of humans as they were within a couple feet of us and didn't seem to even notice.  At one point I felt someone pushing me aside, rude tourists right?  Trying to get a better view of the elephants?  Nope, one of the warthogs pushed into my leg and pushed me aside so it could get into the elephant "pen".  Rude.

After we had met all three groups of elephants and they had all be introduced, we had the opportunity to 'foster' one of the elephants.  The Wildlife Trust relies on both the admission charges as well as donations to operate, the admission is actually quite cheap, so a significant amount of the necessary funds come from donations.  We decided to 'foster' one of the elephants, and with our donation, we were able to take advantage of some additional perks.  Those that have fostered an elephant are able to come back to the Wildlife Trust in the evening to see the elephants fed and put to sleep.  Baby elephants generally sleep curled up next to their mother as they require the heat from their mother to stay warm at night.  So at the Trust, they have large blankets hung in the elephants pens, which the baby elephants will cuddle up to as if it is their mother, and they wrap blankets around the elephants to ensure they stay warm at night.  So we went back to the Trust that evening and got to watch our baby elephant be fed it's milk from a bottle and watch him get his blankets wrapped on.  We could the n pet him a bit before he finally was too tuckered out and flopped down onto the ground, curled up and went to sleep.  It was incredible.  As they got the elephants ready for bed in several groups based on their age, we were able to also see a bunch more of the older elephants being fed, and got to pet a number of them.  We were petting one female elephant, and as it turns out she was somewhat of a troublemaker.  She kept slowly sneaking her trunk over the edge of the gate to her pen and then trying to grab my face with it.  At one point, she grabbed a bucket that was hanging from a chain on the outside of the pen and tried to hit me with it.  It was pretty funny, it was really interesting to see the very different personalities of the elephants.

At the Trust, they also had two black rhinos that had been rescued.  One of them had been there a while and was quite large already, nearly fully grown.  She came over to the gate at one point and seemed to want our attention.  Joce tentatively touched her horn as she was sticking it trough the gate, she seemed to love it. As soon as Joce stopped petting her horn, she would move it over closer to another person for them to pet it.  Bizarre.  Petting a 2+ ton rhino is a anxious experience to say the least, one neither Joce or I ever thought we would have in our lives, but one we will never forget.

-steve