Produced by Sheldrick Wildlife Trust and written by Angela Sheldrick, this limited-edition book offers a behind-the-scenes look at the Trust’s renowned conservation work, from the perspective of someone who has grown up at the heart of it all. Featuring 176 pages of stunning photographs and stories, Field Notes, Volume I shines a light on the hope, heartbreak, and history of Kenya’s wildlife and wild spaces.

Field Notes, Volume I is a definitive collector’s item for anyone inspired by the work of Sheldrick Wildlife Trust or the magic of Africa. Released just in time for the holidays, this beautiful book makes a meaningful keepsake or a treasured gift.

Available in a limited-edition print run through our distributor partner, proceeds from each purchase of Field Notes, Volume I support our field conservation work in Kenya — funding more stories like those that fill the book's pages.

I have been lucky to live a lifetime in Kenya’s wild spaces. My childhood played out in the red earth of Tsavo and later beneath the leafy croton trees of Nairobi National Park. As I grew up around a motley crew of baby rhinos, elephants, zebras, and antelope — just to name a few — so many monumental things were unfolding around me.

My father, David Sheldrick, was the founding warden of Tsavo East National Park. Every night around the dinner table, he would regale us with spellbinding tales of the day’s events: ambushing poachers, charging elephants, raging rivers, daring rescues. Meanwhile, my mother, Daphne Sheldrick, was working around the clock raising orphaned elephants and rhinos, all the while trying to crack the code of how to raise the infant elephant babies. I have such a crystallised memory of her mixing milk, with a little elephant trunk twirled around her wrist.

These were the scenes that narrated my own upbringing. The Sheldrick Wildlife Trust has grown over the decades, evolving into a multi-faceted organisation spanning elephant and rhino conservation, habitat preservation, anti-poaching, aerial operations, field veterinary, and community outreach. What began as a single stable has morphed into a world-renowned Orphans’ Project that has successfully raised more than 300 orphaned elephants. As we raise the orphans of today, our pilots, rangers, vet units, and field teams are working hard to ensure they always have wild spaces to call home.

But as much as things have changed, so much remains exactly the same. My husband, Robert, and I have raised our sons in the same great wildernesses that shaped my life. Mirroring my own childhood, we still gather around the dinner table every night to regale each other with the day’s stories. These, too, mirror the stories I grew up with: orphaned elephants rescued, poachers apprehended, wild lives saved.

A lifetime of conversations around the dinner table are what inspired me to start writing Field Notes in 2019. I realised there were so many as-yet-untold stories — little-known sides of our conservation work, incredible tales from the field, insights into the landscapes in which we work and the species we protect, tales of Kenya’s history and ecology and environment. We settled on “Field Notes”, a monthly email newsletter in which I could share my stories — our stories — with an audience beyond the dinner table.

Five years into Field Notes, Volume I is a compilation of my favourite stories. I hope you enjoy reading them as much as I enjoyed telling them.