We win some, and we loose some! Over the years we have accepted the hard way that baby elephants can be fine one day, and dead the next and the sudden and unexpected death of precious baby “Wasin” on the morning of 8th January 2011 was a painful reminder of just that! Wasin had never been a robust baby, and maybe this was because she was so young when she came in she may have only had a little of her mother's colostrum, we will never know, but she never really thrived
We win some, and we loose some! Over the years we have accepted the hard way that baby elephants can be fine one day, and dead the next and the sudden and unexpected death of precious baby “Wasin” on the morning of 8th January 2011 was a painful reminder of just that!
Wasin had never been a robust baby, and maybe this was because she was so young when she came in she may have only had a little of her mother's colostrum, we will never know, but she never really thrived. Over the many years that we have been rearing the orphaned elephants, several have come in with heart defects which became more apparent with age, others have succumbed to blood embolisms having been confined down wells, and one was born with just one lung which could not provide sufficient oxygen once she was older. We therefore have to accept that perhaps some orphans are abandoned because they are not sufficiently robust to keep up with the herd – Nature’s way of natural selection to ensure that wild genes are strong – but that said, losing a loved one, irrespective of why, never gets any easier.
Wasin was deeply loved and will be deeply missed by us all, as well as her many foster-parents, whose hearts she stole during her short life. She had been with us for the past 2 ½ months and was apparently fine the day previous to her death. But, she unexpectedly took a turn for the worse during the early hours of January 8th 2011 and died later that day at 3.00pm, passing small blood clots indicative of severe gastro enteritis. She had weathered a long struggle cutting her first molars, which always cause baby elephants difficulty, and which obviously compromised her immune system. She was simply not sufficiently robust to come through that, despite a couple of courses of antibiotics, but she died surrounded by an outpouring of love and grief. Rest in Peace precious little Wasin, Somewhere in the Great Somewhere. At least you will be spared the trials and tribulations of your kind on earth due to the lust of the human species for your ivory teeth and that thought at least brings some small comfort.
