Elephant Sunburn

Sheldrick Wildlife Trust Animal Orphanage, Nairobi, Kenya, Africa This photo just taken hours ago is of a baby Elephant who lost his mother. Elephants are prone to sunburn too, and as a result the caretaker follows this little guy around with an umbrella on top of the sunscreen applied to him. In the wild elephants use mud to help prevent sunburn, but the young ones haven't learned how to properly slather on some wild mud sunblock yet. In addition a baby elephant is used to being in the shadow of his mother, being orphaned a caretaker with an umbrella is the next best thing to the sun protection his mother can provide.

To watch this little pachyderm bumble around while his caretaker hastily chases after him with an umbrella is hilarious, but entirely necessary to emulate the loving family environment that an elephant needs to survive. Without love and attention the elephants will to live wains eventually leading to death. It's this formula of creating a family of caretakers that created the first successful rearing of an orphaned african elephant, a program that has rescued over a hundred elephants from the loss of their families due to poaching.

For more on the animal orphanage see http://www.sheldrickwildlifetrust.org/

Thirsty baby elephant orphans

Hooray it’s #thirstythursdayDavid Sheldrick Animal Orphanage in Nairobi, Kenya, Africa

Many animals including Rhinoceros and Elephants may become orphaned by poachers or loss of habitat. People have tried to raise elephant orphans and in doing so become a mother figure to the elephants. Some of the first attempts at raising these extremely social animals ended in tragedy as the need for love from a family had not been accounted for. This was unfortunately discovered when one of the pioneers of raising these animals Dr. Dame Daphne Sheldrick left for a week for wedding arrangements, only to return to baby “Aisha” in such a state of despair that she died in her arms.

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The Sheldrick animal orphanage now employs a large “family” of caretakers, each one loving and caring but the elephants are discouraged from becoming too attached to any single person. Instead the elephant is attached to the family as a whole to replace the orphans lost mother, which prevents any grief that the elephant may feel should a single caretaker be absent. This among other discoveries has led the orphanage to successfully raise over 80 elephants and return them to their community in Tsavo National park.

All these growing elephants are very hungry and require a lot of nourishment, the thirst for milk is palpable when caretakers bring out the jugs. The cows milk is not enough, and additional supplements of coconut is given to them to provide them with the correct fats that they need.

I took two photos of this, once with the bottle full and the other with it empty. My camera records the time each photo is taken, I want you to guess how many seconds it takes for this guy to chug the milk down and write your response in the comments. The answer the question is at the bottom of this post in white text, highlight the bottom of this post to see.

I will be returning here again on my next photo safaris in february and september next year! http://www.civilizedadv.com/trip_pages/trips/2012/KT120907.html

http://www.civilizedadv.com/trip_pages/trips/2012/KT120202.html

See also my african gallery here.

Please check out the Sheldrick Wildlife Trust website to find out more about what they are doing, and share this to get the word out! It’s my hope that I have inspired you a little bit! http://www.sheldrickwildlifetrust.org/

Highlight between here for the answer: [ This guy drank 5 litres in 9 seconds! What a machine!]