Elephant Rescue
For the Elephants in the Milgis ecosystem, the drought of 2006 was very sad. Four very small elephant calves fell down kisimas in search of water. These are primitive wells dug in the sand rivers by the Samburu to water their cattle. They may have been pushed in by mistake by the thirsty herd... Two of them drowned quite quickly as they fell head first into the water and could not turn round, the third was buried alive by its mother trying to pull the youngster out, and the fourth was found still alive by a passing Samburu herdsman. She was down an 18ft well, holding her head and trunk up, so as not to drown...He called for help. Imagine getting a 40 to 50 kg elephant out of a narrow deep hole, but they managed, and the little elephant was tied to a tree in the shade while somebody went to find help from the Milgis Trust base.
Unfortunately some of the Samburu children got their knives out and cut slices out of her ears. They were hoping to mark her, as they do their own livestock, so as to identify her in the future. Little did they know that this little elephant would suffer for months as a result of these injuries, find it difficult to sleep, and actually would have died soon after if she had not been taken into expert care... She was rescued by Halvor Astrup's helicopter the next morning and taken to Daphne Sheldrick's amazing orphanage in Nairobi. Everyone was on tenterhooks waiting each day to know how little Lesanju [named after the late chief in Latakwen] was doing. Daphne never minded what time we called, and always had better news for us. Now Lesanju has declared herself the 'boss' of a little herd of other young elephants that were rescued from the floods that started just after her own amazing rescue!!
From the rescue of Lesanju we have learned some valuable lessons. We must find a solution to the problem of the waterholes - at the moment the elephants are attracted to these kisimas in the dry season which are not only dangerous for their calves but they end up destroying the water supply of the Samburu people which causes a lot of friction between them and the elephants. The mutilation of the calf's ears was not done out of cruelty but out of a desire to have a connection with that elephant in the future, but with little understanding of the damage it would ultimately do as an elephants' ears are essential to its cooling system. To prevent this happening again to any type of wild animal, the Milgis Trust, as part of its education and awareness programme, has asked its scouts to choose a key species that they would like to represent. Along with their own knowledge, they will be taught the ecology, behaviour and conservation needs of their animal in detail so that they can teach the communities what these animals are about, and discuss better ways to co-exist, for the benefit of all...