Adopting Lentili - our newest family member

In June, one of our Account Managers travelled to Kenya and visited the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust.

We adopted a baby elephant!

At the heart of the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust’s conservation activities is the Orphans’ Project, which has achieved world-wide acclaim through its hugely successful elephant and rhino rescue and rehabilitation program. The Orphans’ Project exists to offer hope for the future of Kenya’s threatened elephant and rhino populations as they struggle against the threat of poaching for their ivory and horn, and the loss of habitat due to human population pressures and conflict, deforestation and drought.

To date the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust has successfully hand-raised over 150 infant elephants and has accomplished its long-term conservation priority by effectively reintegrating orphans back into the wild herds of Tsavo, claiming many healthy wild-born calves from former-orphaned elephants raised in our care.

Here are some of Lentili’s details. We will be keeping you updated on her progress at the orphanage.

Gender	Female	Date of Birth	Saturday, July 07, 2012
Location Found	Ol Lentille Conservancy
Age on Arrival	18 months old
Comments on Place Found	Found on her own with no other elephants in sight
Reason for being Orphaned	Reason Unknown

On October 5th Ol Lentille Rangers on routine patrol sighted an abandoned baby elephant calf, estimated to be 18 months old. There were no other elephants in the area, and the fate of her mother remained unclear. The Rangers were posted on 24 hour follow-and-observe duty.

Update of Lentili’s progress

Most of the orphan females show this to varying degrees, all that is except little Lentili. Poor Lentili seems to lack any maternal instincts and has absolutely no concern for the younger more vulnerable elephants. She doesn’t like the little babies suckling on her ears and has no patience for their clumsiness or playful behavior. She rarely plays with the babies or lets them climb on her for fun like so many of the other older elephants do. She will even resort to giving them a hard push if they bump into her which quickly alerts Arruba who will rush to protect them from grumpy Lentili. No doubtLentili will develop a maternal nature and will one day take care of her own wild born babies, but for now she is quite happy being a baby herself and is in no hurry to grow up!Arruba, however, is quite the opposite of Lentili and has taken it upon herself to watch over the youngest babies. She is always quick to come to their aid, whether protecting them from a pushy elephant or from troublesome warthogs.

It seems that Lentili is pretty independent and not very social at the moment. Hopefully her time at the orphanage will help her with the social issues.

If your organisation or if you are interested in adopting please visit www.sheldrickwildlifetrust.org.