Reflecting back on the beginning of our robust, energetic and fun loving Nursery orphan called Kauro makes one realise what a success his journey has been.  It is nice to be able to share in our ‘miracles’ as raising infant elephants is so challenging, successes take on great magnitude. 

Kauro came to us in January 2014 having spent significant time submerged in a man-made well in Northern Kenya.  How long he was in the well remains unknown, but long enough to have the tip of his trunk bitten by a small predator, we suspect a jackal or similar.  It is hard to imagine how frightening the whole ordeal that robbed him of his elephant family must have been for one so small, but what arrived into our care was a tiny, extremely vulnerable, waterlogged and half-drowned baby elephant.  We had to navigate the immediate pitfalls of exhaustion, possible pneumonia and his trunk injuries and then the dreaded teething process which takes such a heavy toll on the infant babies.

 

Thankfully Kauro, along with his friends Kamok and Murit, managed to overcome their ordeal and emerge the other side to thrive at the Nairoi Nursery. Today he cuts a fine specimen, with impressive genes, for he has grown extremely big and strong for his age.  We look forward to watching Kauro grow to become a huge, awe-inspiring bull elephant one day, living a totally wild life and we bask in the joy knowing that together we enabled him to have his second chance at life.