Dika even demonstrated the suckling from a “hand held bottle” and “much to our joy, after that he never looked back.” (p.277)Ībout the time that orphan TARU (p.268) arrived a keeper with “a magical and mysterious empathy” was recruited. (p.277) But for some instinctive reason Dika responded to Edo’s distress, encouraging the little bull to struggle onto his feet and “take milk”. Upon Edo’s arrival at the elephant orphanage he subsequently “collapsed”.

Edo was orphaned at age 6 months after his mother consumed plastics and various inedible objects from an Amboseli National Reserve “rubbish bin”. It was not until the arrival, three months later, of Edo that Dika came around.

It was not the “sepsis of his puncture wounds” that kept his keepers worried but the psychological wounds Dika would exhibit when the little bull elephant grieved endlessly “for his lost family” as it definitely affected his overall health. Let us not forget: DIKA & EDO The rescue of little Dika (covered with the thorn punctures of a thicket of acacia bushes from which he subsequently dashed through to escape “the killers” as they were taking “the life of his mother” p.276) created enormous concern. Let us not forget: NDUME & MALAIKA who were rescued from an incident of human-elephant conflict (p.277) and MARY who would join “Eleanor’s unit” when she was rescued at age 10 after her owners, at the Safari Club in Nanyuki, had consented and vowed they would not ship her off to “a zoo in America”. Eleanor was especially reluctant to release him from her care after he became hurt (p.283) and it was necessary to return him to the nursery at the elephant orphanage. 268) who would become one of Eleanor’s special charges. Let us not forget: OL JORI, “the little bull calf” (p.

Images: Posted on CC Flickr : 7 Photos : all copyrights held by Macmillan Books : Dame Daphne Sheldrick Family from the book: Love, Life, and Elephants by Dame Daphne Sheldrick For it was then that Daphne and Jill realized that in order to “hand rear elephant orphans” they would most certainly need to be “better equipped” (with “elephant accommodations, milk supplies and keepers.” P. And despite the work it had taken to fluff up the floor with a “bed of hay” the orphaned calf continued to have a preference to sleep on Jill’s bed.Īnd so it came to be that “looking after Olmeg” was the “turning point” (p.267) for the beginnings of The David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust. Let us not forget: OLMEG (p.266) who was the first and most likely the only baby elephant to share Jill’s bedroom. Let us not forget: JUMA & BIBI baby bull Juma & Bibi (p.

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