Sheldrick Trust Wildlife Orphanage -- Kenya

IFAW supports the Sheldrick Trust Wildlife Orphanage, established in memory of David Sheldrick, famous naturalist and founding Warden of Kenya's giant Tsavo East National Park.

Since its inception in 1977, the Trust has played an extremely significant and important role in Kenya's conservation efforts, speaking out when necessary on controversial issues and stepping in unobtrusively and rapidly to bridge gaps or meet shortfalls during times of economic constraint.

Tsavo National Park is the Trust's main focus, for David Sheldrick and Tsavo are synonymous. At 8,069 square miles (11,184 square kilometers), Tsavo National Park is Kenya's largest wildlife refuge. Its size -- and the fact that it is the area in which northern and southern forms of fauna meet -- makes it a place that offers the best long-term hope for the perpetuation of a greater number of species than any other Park in the world.

The Park's size is its strength, for it is self-sustaining and ecologically viable without intrusive management. It has a proven record in this respect, having weathered devastating droughts and violent flooding, epidemics of rinderpest, and natural population surges and swings triggered by elephant-induced progressions of vegetation. Yet Tsavo's rich biodiversity remains intact, strengthened by natural selection, Nature's most powerful and potent tool.

Tsavo National Park embraces Kenya's largest single population of elephants, currently standing at 8,500. It also harbors the last of the great herds of buffalo in Kenya, and healthy populations of all the country's indigenous predators including extremely rare African hunting dogs. It contains a healthy population of lions, leopards, cheetahs, and both spotted and striped hyenas (under pressure in smaller sanctuaries). There have been reported sightings by experienced naturalists of brown hyenas and a broad spectrum of smaller predators such as caracals, servals, civets, mongooses and genets.

The Trust has been active locally in an educational capacity as well as through articles for the Wildlife Clubs of Kenya and the press. It has funded field trips for students and provided advanced training in wildlife management for promising students.

Those reared by the Trust are the youngest elephants ever to have been successfully hand-reared and successfully reintegrated back into the wild community.

The Trusts elephants have been orphaned for a number of reasons including poaching, problem animal control, becoming stuck in mud, falling into wells or erosion gulleys, drought related (the mother died of starvation) or during relocation. They are brought to the orphanage facilities at Nairobi National Park from destinations throughout East Africa, and are usually flown in as further delays before treatment and appropriate care can be fatal.

Once the new arrivals have adjusted to their new life style and environment, they are relocated to Tsavo to join the remainder of orphans and continue their rehabilitation. The Trust has cared for over 40 elephants with 25 orphans still milk-dependant and in care.