I’VE FOSTERED AN ORPHANED ELEPHANT CALLED MURERA

Today I met 32 orphaned elephants at The David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust.

Today I ‘fostered’ a 2.5 year old elephant named Murera.

The Trust likes to name its orphaned elephants in a way that can identify them with their origin. The orphans come from all corners of Kenya and from many different elephant populations, so they are usually given place or ethnic tribal names.  Murera was named after the National Park where she was found: Meru National Park.

Name	Gender	Date Born	Location Found	Age on Arrival	Comments	Reason for being Orphaned
MURERA	Female	Monday, September 07, 2009	Meru National Park	About 2 and a half years old	She was spotted by Offbeat Safari guides. She had been on her own for several days.	Poaching

So what is the aim of the Baby Elephant Foster Parent Programme?

The aim of our Orphans' Project is to rear the orphaned elephants in such a way that they grow up psychologically sound and in the fullness of time take their place back where they rightly belong, and where they can enjoy a normal wild life amongst the wild elephant community of Tsavo National Park. Elephants need space. The Tsavo Conservation Area is over 64,000 square km in extent, and as such can provide the space an elephant needs for a quality of life. No space in captivity is adequate for an elephant, however attractive it may appear to us humans.

When a tiny newborn elephant is orphaned, often its mother and family have been gunned down to serve the Ivory trade, its life support gone; any survivors fleeing in terror; its fate now suffering and death in hopeless and lonely isolation it cannot understand. For an elephant, the family is all important; its very existence dependent upon its mother's milk for the first two years of life and a life that should span three score years and ten, equivalent to that of man. In a perfect world that elephant life would be filled with fun and joy through the companionship of friends and a close-knit and loving family, whose love is pure and unconditional all the days of its life.

Let me tell you about Murera’s story:

At about 11 a.m. during the morning of the 21st February 2012, Mr Piers Winkworth of the Offbeat Safaris Tented Camp in Meru National Park noticed a lone young elephant calf, which appeared to have a broken leg. The Camp Guides said that they had seen this orphaned elephant over the past few days, and apparently KWS (Kenya Wildlife Services) Rangers had received a report about it some 3 weeks ago, but subsequently had been unable to trace it. Piers Winkworth called The David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust to alert them about this orphan, and forwarded photographs of it so that they could assess its approximate size and age. He then drove to KWS Headquarters to get permission for the rescue of this calf and organize some Rangers to help with its capture. The Keepers rescue team landed at the Meru airstrip and were driven to the orphan’s location.

By 5 p.m. the calf was safely captured and transported to the Caravan Rescue Plane waiting at Meru Mulika Lodge airfield. It was a young female, just over 2 years of age, severely lame from possibly having trodden on poisoned elephant spikes hidden just beneath the soil of an elephant trail – a particularly brutal and cruel means of poaching not uncommon these days. By 8 pm the calf was safely back in the Nairobi Nursery, but too wild to handle, despite being incapacitated both by the foot injury to the one hind leg, and what looked like a dislocated hip joint on the other hind leg.

However, she took water, and throughout the night, a little milk, but collapsed the next day and had to be put on life support during the afternoon of the 22nd. This gave us a chance to take a closer look at the injured foot of one hind leg, and to clean out the deep holes in the sole, disinfect and pack them with green clay, and administer a long acting anti-biotic injection. The next day the Vet came to see her and assisted in cleaning her wounds again. The one hind leg had 3 deep puncture wounds caused by stepping on elephant spikes, while the other leg has some extensive internal tissue damage which our Vet has deemed healable over time with plenty of rest. “Murera” (As she has been named) spent her first few days at the Nursery stockades, as her wounds needed cleaning daily and she could not put any weight at all on the injured leg. All the Nursery inmates would crowd around her stable, giving her rumbles of love and encouragement that hopefully will impart the will to live.  To keep her company Orwa would stay behind and act as her playmate and companion. They bonded over those few days so much so that Orwa had to be moved next door to Murera’s stockade as she would get stressed in the evening when he left for his quarter.  Within a week, her wounds started healing well and she was able to put a little more weight on her injured hind leg. After 2 weeks she was able to join the orphan herd close by which had obvious positive effect on her wellbeing and as a result her healing process. Although the ligament damage from the fall will take several months to fully heal she is so far doing very well and showing signs of improvement every day.

The David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust is enormously grateful to Mr Piers Winkworth who went to a great deal of trouble to ensure the rescue of little Murera and to the Meru Park Rangers who assisted so professionally with her capture. We all hope and pray that in the fullness of time, Murera will live to forget all the pain and suffering to which she has been subjected, and will come to understand that not all humans are “bad”!

None of the programme would have been possible without help of many people worldwide, for the rearing an infant elephant is an expensive and long-term commitment during the time it is dependent upon milk and a team of trained carers who represent the lost elephant family and are there for the little elephant until such time as it is comfortable amongst the wild herds and chooses to become independent. The time involved depends entirely upon the personality of each individual and also upon how well the elephant can recall its elephant family, but all the orphans reared by The David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust are "elephants" again and integrated into the wild community by the age of ten, though always in their large elephant hearts will be a corner for the specific humans who were their family in infancy.

What YOU get out of the programme.

The Baby Elephant Foster Parent Programme, via email will include:

A fostering certificate with a profile and photograph of your adopted orphan together with a description of the Orphans’ Project.

An interactive map indicating where your orphan was found and a description of the habitat and the plight of the elephants (or Rhinos) in that particular area.

A monthly summary highlighting events of the previous month together with a direct link to the ‘Keepers Diary’ for your elephant. In the diary you will be able to access the daily calendar entries and the monthly photos. These updates can be printed off to enable you to keep a journal highlighting the progress of your orphan.

Along with the update you will receive a collectable monthly water colour by Angela Sheldrick.

From time-to-time, you will receive news of new arrivals and rescues written by Dr. Dame Daphne Sheldrick with accompanying photographs.

And most importantly, as one of our foster parents, you are considered part of the DSWT team and we will be keeping in personal contact with you as an important member of our project.

So I have done a good thing today. 

I don’t care that there are 50 other ‘foster’ parents of Murera.  After seeing the facility and knowing the work that is done at The David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust-I know that my money will be well spent on animals that are in need of the care that they get.  If this programme wasn’t in place the elephants could quickly become on the endangered list and then your children will not be able to see these magnificent creatures when they get older, or their children in years to come.  They will only be in story books and National Geographic shows on TV. 

Yes I have done a good thing today to make a difference in wildlife conservation and I will be visiting my new charge in the coming weeks to say hi and an update report will follow.