Finding Kanjoro and Quanza

Over the past couple of weeks I have been working hard to get to Africa, and the journey has led me somewhere that I never thought it would. When I first started researching Africa, I really didn't know more than what I had seen in the Lion King and other stereotypes. I liked African animals, and the mystique of their exoticism. I love leopards. I love leopard print. But I really didn't know much about them.

Since I have made the decision to study in Africa, I knew I had to educate myself more about the wildlife. First, I didn't want to look like an idiot in front of the wildlife vets in South Africa. I wanted to sound like I knew something about their job and Africa. And second, I was actually interested, I did want to know more about these animals, and there was an obvious gap in my education.

Somewhere along the way though I discovered something new and fell in love. I fell in love with the majestic African elephants and their story. It started when I read "Love, Life and Elephants" by Dame Daphne Sheldrick. I highly recommend that book to everyone, even if you don't have any special interest in elephants or Kenya. While reading this book, I began to see elephants in a brand new light.

Since finishing the book I have done a lot of additional research, and a lot of it has shocked and surprised me. I have learned that the average lifespan of the African elephant is 70 years, very close to ours. I have learned that their memory is better than ours is, that they remember things for life and use that memory to hold grudges. I have learned that elephants are very social animals; they love, they grieve, and they also get jealous and hold grudges. Their hippocampus, the area of the brain involved in emotion, is larger than ours.

I've learned that elephants make friends for life, that they will recognize an elephant they haven't seen in over 30 years and rush to meet them. I have learned that elephants are the only animals on Earth besides humans to hold funerals, that they will bury their dead with branches and hold a funeral procession. Everything about them suggests that their intelligence and emotions are on a level with ours.

But in doing my research, I have learned a lot of disheartening facts as well. At least 25,000 elephants were killed in 2011 for their ivory. Most of the ivory gets shipped to China, where the new wealthy middle class can afford ivory as a status symbol. And the scary part of it is that a recent poll found that as much as 70% of the Chinese population believed that their ivory came form elephants whose tusks just dropped off.  The lack of education is a dangerous fuel for the poaching fire.

Since realizing the depressing facts of the elephant poaching problem in Africa I have become a lot more interested in the movement to stop it. One of the most heartbreaking parts of the poaching problem is the orphan elephants that are left behind. Baby elephants are completely dependent on their mothers for at least 3 years, and have no hope of surviving in the wild without them. The David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust runs an orphanage in Kenya to take in these orphaned elephants. These baby elephants are usually found standing beside the body of their murdered mothers, sometimes having been there for several days. Once they arrive at the orphanage, they go through the same grieving process that we do. They become listless, refuse food, shun the company of the other orphans, and may act our aggressively. But at the orphanage they have a second chance, and most of them turn it around and eventually bond with their keeps, staying at the orphanage until they are old enough to be released back into the wild.

The story of the African elephant and their plight has now become my main objective, and where I am hoping I can make a difference. I have since decided to foster two of their baby elephants, Kanjoro and Quanza. Quanza came to the orphanage after her mother and two sisters were killed by poachers. She is a little over one year old. Kanjoro came to the orphanage after a Samburu scout found him and saw that he had been alone for several days. He is about a year and a half. Both of these elephants would have died for sure if left on their own in the wild.

One day I hope that I will be able to go to Kenya and visit my two fostered elephants, but until then I want to learn as much about their species as I can while I am in South Africa. The more I learn, the more I can do, and I will have a better position from which to help.

Quanza, right after arriving at the orphanage

Kanjoro

Kanjoro receiving one of three daily milk feedings

Kanjoro

Quanza settling in, and another orphan trying to sneak her second bottle

The orphaned elephants develop close bonds with their keepers

A crowd of orphans

Playing

Two new orphans settling in

If you can help an orphaned elephant, please visit the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust's Fostering Page here http://www.sheldrickwildlifetrust.org/asp/fostering.asp