Two month old Lumo, rescued from the water of a dam in the Taita Hills Conservancy by the Salt Lick staff during the late evening of the 11th of Feb. Having spent the night there, the Rescue team from our Voi Elephant Stockades drove in to assess the size and condition of the calf, before calling Nairobi to organize the rescue plane.

She came to the Nairobi Elephant Nursery on the 12th February, already in a weakened condition, obviously having been without her mother and milk for several days added to which she already had life threatening diarrhea. Oral anti-biotic and electrolytes instantly administered failed to halt the diarrhea, and although the calf fed well initially, downing 33 pints of formula milk in a 24 hour period, the diarrhea persisted until she stopped feeding at midnight on the l7th February, and was dead by the morning. Little Lumo was yet another tragic orphaned baby elephant who came in too far gone for us to be able to retrieve, even though she put up a gallant struggle for life.

At such times one simply has to find some consolation in the fact that she had a comfortable end, surrounded by a human family that loved her, instead of having to suffer a violent death torn asunder by predators, or else spared that, dying in lonely isolation somewhere out in the bush, which must surely be the worst possible death for an infant of her species who is normally surrounded and supported by a doting elephant family as well as her elephant mother.