It was not until 1974, and after years of trial and error, that Daphne Sheldrick managed to keep a newborn infant alive for the first 6 months of life, but grief and stress related diarrhoea took her life when Daphne had to be absent from her for a week in order to attend to the arrangements for the wedding of her daughter, Jill, even though a competent substitute was in place.   However, little “Aisha” (whose story is on the website) mourned the loss of yet another mother figure so deeply that she died in Daphne’s arms the day she returned.  

It was not until 1987, and after the death of her beloved husband, David, that Daphne finally achieved success in rearing the infant elephants, the first being a 2 week old victim of poaching named “Olmeg”, who today is a bull of 18.   Poaching and other human related disasters followed and other orphans were rescued.   By June 2005, sixty seven  infant African elephants had been successfully hand-reared by the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust established in memory of David, all under the very close supervision of Daphne Sheldrick.   Since the death of “Aisha” the orphaned elephants are discouraged from becoming too attached to just one person, but rather handled by a team of dedicated “Keepers” who can represent a “family” and who replace an orphan’s lost elephant one.   The “family”, along with the milk formula, is an essential component to success in rearing the elephants who mirror humans in terms of emotion.   This lesson, learnt by Daphne Sheldrick the hard way in 1974, combined with techniques involving a combination of homeopathy and conventional medicine to treat the sick and wounded, plus 50 years of experience involving a good dose of emotion are responsible for the Trust’s success in this field.   However, even though 67 young elephants have been saved, reared and offered a second chance of life and freedom, having successfully moved beyond the two year fragile infant stage, an additional 44 have not made it, too damaged to be able to retrieve or having died, some mysteriously, before the age of two.   All the elephant orphans raised by the Trust are gradually rehabilitated back into the wild elephant community of Tsavo National Park when grown, a transition that is made at their own pace and in their own time.  Some of our ex Nursery orphans have now had wild born young which they have brought back to show their erstwhile human family, and others are now pregnant and living free, yet keeping in touch with those who are still Keeper dependent.   Amongst these are many orphaned too young to have any recollection of their elephant mother or family.