I couldn’t help but visit both the orphaned elephants and giraffe
park in Nairobi for a second time (last visit 2009).
The David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust
Orphan’s project rescues and hand-rears milk-dependent baby elephants, rhino
and other species so they can one day return to the wild. Over 135 orphaned
elephants and 17 rhinos have been saved.
The elephants are definitely the main attraction. Most came here
as their parents had been slaughtered by poachers. The babies came out first
and ran straight for the milk bottles.
Special formula milk dribbled down their
chins as they gulped it down so quickly. Most of them had to be assisted by the
keepers but some of the older ones could cope very well by themselves.
The
elephants flicked dirt over themselves with their trunks and the keepers did
the same to them (using spades) as a form of bonding. One keeper hand fed a
baby water out of the barrels.
They also had two large black rhino in
residence, one of them blind (but sadly not the super-cute baby rhino that was
there last time).
From there, we headed to the African Fund for Endangered Wildlife Giraffe Park.
Each person is allowed two handfuls of pellets which you are supposed to feed
one by one to the endangered Rothschild giraffes.
We saw some people putting a
pellet in their mouth and getting the giraffe to essentially ‘kiss’ them to eat
it so we copied them and got our own giraffe kisses!
We later learnt they have 18
inch tongues that are grey-black to protect them from the sun and their saliva
contains antiseptic. In the knowledge session, we also held a giraffe’s leg
bone which was so heavy it’s not surprising they can kill a lion with one kick.
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