Tourists in Kᴇɴʏᴀ discovered a weak orphaned elephant baby battling to survive after being ᴀᴛᴛᴀᴄᴋed by a jackal. He was plucked from the wild and is now flourishing in a wildlife orphanage.
In response to reports of the roaming calf, the Kᴇɴʏᴀ Wildlife Service and David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust sent a rescue team to rescue the calf. The elephant, who was three or four months old at the time, was left behind for unclear reasons, however it’s possible his mother was a victim of poaching.
The DSWT’s executive director, Angela Sheldrick, said of the rescue that the rescue team located the calf after a brief search and it became clear that he was in desperate need of rescue, and in fact it was a miracle that he was still alive with the infamous Tsavo lions plentiful in that area.
They believed jackals – small predators – had ᴅᴀᴍᴀɢᴇd his hind legs and tail, and it was clear from his injuries and poor health that they needed to act quickly. The crew took him to the Voi Reintegration Centre nearby where they gave him milk and rehydration salts. Then he was restrained, placed onto a plane and transported to Nairobi National Park, where the DSWT has an orphanage for elephants and rhinos.
The calf received round-the-clock care from his keepers, who had even claimed to occasionally hear him snore. The other orphaned elephants, including the older ones that had previously neglected the young, had also been won over by him.
He was taken under the wing of an elephant named Tagwa, who made regular attempts to get his interest and take him on foraging excursions so he could demonstrate which shoots and roots were the best-tasting.