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 The 12th October 2001, and an alert that an
elephant will be coming in a Helicopter to be deposited at the doorstep
of our Nairobi Elephant Nursery, an event that elicits a flurry of
excitement and activity, since this will be the first baby elephant to
be brought by a Helicopter actually on site. Shortly
afterwards, the same Helicopter that flew Mweya from Uganda to Kenya,
landed beside Daphne's house, with a tiny trunk waving from an open window! We were told by the pilot, Phil Mathews, that she
had been rescued by Ian Craig of Lewa Downs from a deep depression in a
natural rock water catchment known as Kasima Hamisi.  Ian Craig's party were there to discuss another community wildlife
related project with the local people when they heard faint wails that
at first they could not identify. Further investigation
revealed the tiny head of an elephant calf just managing to keep above
the water level. They believe that she had been in the "well"
probably for two days, unable to touch the bottom, but managing somehow
to keep afloat, desperately clinging to life. This same
place had apparently trapped another calf a couple of years earlier who
had been successfully reunited with her elephant family.
We estimate that this tiny elephant was about 6 weeks old upon arrival, therefore born in September 2001, and although we anticipate the usual problems, right now she is doing fine, and delighted to have found herself within a welcoming elephant family, and humans that are equally as loving and gentle to feed her on demand and take care of all her bruises, both mental and physical © The David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust |
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Seraa's Diary
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The baby was
extracted from the hole and deposited by the Helicopter near an elephant
herd spotted from the air earlier, but sadly the Matriarch reacted
violently, tossing the calf away, whilst another member of the herd
attempted to kneel on her. Clearly this particular herd
would reject, and even possibly kill, this baby – unusual elephant
behaviour in a psychologically stable population, but not unusual where
the elephants have long been subjected to persecution by humans and are
themselves constantly in a state of high alert. The calf was
retrieved and from then on, treated as an orphan. Ian Craig
requested that she be named "Seraa", the name of the location
in which she was orphaned.
Here in the Nairobi Nursery, the reception
little Seraa received from the other orphaned elephants was warm,
tender and loving. They all came along to have a look and
welcome the new baby before themselves going into their stables for the
night. Then, "Nasalot", upon hearing the calf cry,
insisted on being let out again so that she could reassure herself that
the distress was not emanating from one of "her" favourite
Nursery babies – i.e. Mweya, Sweet Sally or little Thoma.
With tail up and ears out she hurried round to their night stables, and
having satisfied herself that each one was fine, rushed back to where
the baby was with her new Keepers. We let her in, and
immediately the newcomer calmed down, as Nasalot rumbled a loving
greeting, and gentled the baby all over. Having spent about
10 minutes with her, Nasalot was then happy to return to her stable,
confident that the baby was in safe hands with her new Keepers. As for little
Seraa, very soon she was comfortable with her Keepers,
taking re-hydration fluids and milk, and during her first night, unlike
Sweet Sally and Thoma, slept soundly. Come the morning, the
Keepers felt that perhaps she should stay put for a while. However, the two older orphans, Nasalot and Mulika had other ideas. Bellows from the bush indicated that they were wondering why Seraa was
not with them, and back they came, to collect her!
