The Milgis Trust

Category: Desert warthog, Forest Fires, Water holes, elephants | Date: Jun 02 2009 | By: milgistrust

This picture shows things in the good times, plenty of water..

This is the Elephants favourite area, at Ol Donyo Waas.. This special salt water that they come to every day… And lots of cover around.. This is now completely dry, and the well than Nchan was rescued out of is in the middle of where the water is…

and this one shows another elephants favourite drinking spot in not so good times… I gather from the oldest people around that its never been this dry, at this particular spot, in there life time.. It must have been affected by the fires up stream…

And this picture shows just how bad it can get… There are about 200 cat fish, in this stinky mud hole, and each day it gets dryer.. They have their head up to breath… You see them open there mouths, and the air goes in and muddy bubbles come out through there gills… Every two minutes there is a complete frenzy to try to get to the cooler mud below ..Imagine how hot it must get at mid day, in that disgusting smelly mud hole….. yesterday I got a report that they are nearly all dead now… Shame, shame.. nature is cruel…

This beautiful little young animal, the desert warthog is just another victim of these dry times, he was found stuck in the mud, on the Milgis Lugga.. The scout cleaned him up and brought him 15 kms to try to save his little life but he was not lucky… I just wanted to point out the incredible defences he has, at this very young age!! They can draw blood quite substantially with a quick side swipe!…

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Category: Milgis lugga, Water holes, elephants | Date: Jun 01 2009 | By: milgistrust

I think you… YES YOU ALL, are so sweet! Any one who manages to plough through my blog, and to have the time to leave a comment is just so great, THANKYOU……. Sheryl, and Anna especially, but all the others as well… I can see that you spend alot of time thinking and coming up with some brilliant comments… So very appreciated… You have no idea how encouraging it is to receive your thoughts… But even more Thanks to you ‘guys’ actually the latest are girls!!, Wendy, and the two Annas!..We are touched, and VERY GRATEFUL…for you being so generous with your donations… All the funds we get through wildlife direct goes to all the sudden problems that arise… Like rescuing Elephants, and alike..remember the big elephant that was pulled out in September… did you see the photos??. I wish we had more success in finding the mothers of these young ones, but thats how it is, and I gather that Nchan and the latest one called Kudup, are doing well at DSWT..

Unfortunately the pictures of Nchans rescue were too late for DSWT before they put the news on the inter net, the pictures below show what a SURVIVER SHE IS!! …

When her rescuers arrived this was her situation… She had been in this hole for any thing from 6 hours to 15 hours..

Poor little baby… Totally exhausted, and just lay there for quite a while… Just to believe she was out..

Suddenly she realised she was out of her watery ” jail “, She just wants to go, but its no good just letting her go into the bush, with no sign of any Elephants around..

Finally quietened down, in the shade, and taking a drink.. Then to wait for the evening in the hope that the mother will come back…

The next morning.. No Luck unfortunately so she is lifted into the vehicle and taken to the nearest runway, about two hours away… To wait for the aeroplane..

Next Blog will show you Kudups predicament!..

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Category: Grevy's Zebra, Samburu, Turkana, Water holes, elephants | Date: May 15 2009 | By: milgistrust

It started at 6 am with the scouts down at Kudup, [please see my last blog] having had an eventful night, but no sign of the youngsters mother, nor of any herds…sadly, but the lugga came down in a massive flood in the night, so luckily the baby was safe and not still in the well….They stayed the night near
the well in the hope the mother would be back but just one old bull came in to drink, he took a long thirst quenching drink at the well, and did not show much sympathy for the little boy, who was calling, and just wanted to go to him, but there were also lots of Hyenas around keen to have a nice tasty baby
elephant!!, and the scouts stayed awake all night… I strait away got on to the phone to tell DSWT, who were ready at any moment to help… I have just received news from Angela, that he arrived in good form, thirsty for milk, and ‘full of nonsense’! The scouts tell me that he was like that for the whole night!!

As we were settling down to a cup of coffee, We had not slept too much either, hoping that the guys would come on the radio with good news!, The dream outcome.. ‘ The mother is here, and the baby is safely back!’ BUT so such luck…one of the scouts in the western slopes of the Ndotos, piped up on the radio, ‘PLEASE I need help, I am being hunted down by a mad man who wants to kill me because I caught him shooting a greater kudu, I have been hiding all night, he went to my manyatta, and luckily I was not there, but he is looking for me… Please send the home guards to help me, call the chief, come quick in the car’… I quickly answered that the car was miles away in a nother direction, carrying an Elephant!, and that he must find some elders, to help, hope fully there will a home guard,or he must run away to safety, and as soon as we can we will send a team of home guards to help, and have a meeting with the elders on what to do next… Later on he came on the radio to tell me he was safe, the elders had come out ‘en mass’ to help!! Yesterday, the 15th, the team went up to the area, had a long meeting and resolved the problem… last news I had was they will be late because the elders had given them a goat to eat!! [ Who are the Home Guards… they are police reserve, its a wonderful way of keeping the peace in these remote areas, certain responsible people are given a training, and a gun, they live amounst the communities an ordinary life, do not have a uniform and they are called up when there are problems like this or attacks like the next report!]

Next to come up was there had been an attack in the early hours of the night, on a Samburu boma with alot of cattle, near the Suiyan Lugga west of the base!.. One person was shot dead, and one wounded, but the owners of the cattle with the home guards managed to fight off the attackers, and save the cattle from being stolen… Unfortunately unrest between the tribes has reared its ugly head again and there has been quite a few skirmishes north of us, between the Samburu and Turkana… Mostly about cattle rustling, but also old quarrels that have not been resolved.. We had an important meeting that was supposed to take place on the 19th may in Baragoi, on the plight of the Grevy Zebra, which of course is always caught up in these skirmishes.. The meeting has been cancelled..

Last but not least their was alot of relieved talk about rain.. alot of excitement, but its the 16th today, and the rain has gone again… At least we had one good flood down the luggas..And the desert is bursting into life.. little bits of greenery popping out of the ground all around us!! Soon lots of flowers! Today we will be an emergency meeting with the scouts responsible for the wells.. We need to think again of what to do about wells… Its a complicated problem..

The Genet is old enough to be released.. which we did a week ago at Elkanto.. He is very happy in his new home, learning the tricks of the wild again… Hes found all the good places to hide, and we see him every night… He looks forward to his food, but slowly he will disappear off into the wild..

No pictures as we are using a satellite phone, but will put some up asap…There are some great ones of the two baby Elephant rescues!..

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Category: Milgis lugga, Water holes, elephants | Date: May 13 2009 | By: milgistrust

13 may 2009….Sadly another bad day for elephants, although last night I am extremely pleased to tell you that it poured with rain……EVERY WHERE!!!… .. As the day dawned, beautiful colours, spirits were high, and every one was excited, as the rain was good rain, it had rained all night… but on the radio this morning a report came from the Noongek area, North East Matthews,that there was another dead baby elephant, about one year old.. this is the third one of this age in the last month, I think its just too dry for them and they are struggling to keep up with the big elephants, who are managing to reach the water in most of the wells, but these little ones can’t… We have dug wells for them, up and down the sand luggas, but the big elephants insist on drinking from the deeper ones on the edge, some times angrily dragging the thorns that the scouts have put to try to keep them away… Then at 4 O’Clock an urgent report that another baby elephant is down a well, in the lower Milgis, at a place called Kudup…Why did we get the message so late?… Because after the rain, nobody needed to go to the lugga to give their stock water, as there was water every where, but luckily a passer by happened to hear a strange noise in the direction of the deep well, and went to check it out… Luckily the water in the well was not too deep, but he was concerned as if a flood came it would cover this well… He rushed off to find Lesanju, the nearest scout, who on hearing the news called the base to let us know that he was on his way to check things out.. Base on hearing the news, was very alarmed as he had just heard that there had been torrential rain upstream, and to expect a huge flood…

With the news reaching Elkanto, there was action, every one rushing around grabbing what they may need to spend the night, once again with the hope that the mother would come back… She apparently had tried , in vain, by digging around the sides of the well, to get her young one out…She had done a formidable job, unfortunately the sides were hard, and the well very deep…But Lesanju when he got to the recked scene,was frightened that she may come back while he was waiting for help!!… The 5 man rescue team rushed off, as much as one can rush on these rocky tracks, and were there in an hour an a half… They hauled the baby out, who is fine, rather feisty…. As we speak so to say, they are there…silently waiting for a miracle, and the huge flood has just passed us here at Elkanto, heading East… Hey its GOOD TO SEE WATER, TO HEAR WATER!! Also its good to know that before the days of the Milgis trust, that baby would have been trapped and drowned…

4 responses so far

Category: Grevy's Zebra, Matthews range, Water holes, elephants | Date: May 05 2009 | By: milgistrust

Yes I have not been blogging lately, as if I use too much energy writing I will chase off those clouds…[ not a good excuse but feasible?? also I have been away!] and one just keeps on thinking it will rain and then we can talk about good news rather than bad… But no…. not yet… Yes there has been the odd sporadic storm, and of course this is helping the very worrying situation because luckily the people are still nomadic…People with their livestock and wildlife are moving from here to there, to keep themselves, alive… Thank goodness they still are nomadic, and the land has not been divided up, and fenced… But the situation is quite grave, as far as water for the wildlife is concerned… In 20 years, since I have been in this region, we have never got to May, and not had a huge flood or 20 down the big luggas, Laana Nikan, Parsaloi… Milgis.. We keep hoping, that because they, [the rains], are late, that it will come with vengeance!! … The other evening, while the scouts were opening up the well below Elkanto for the Elephants to use during the night, they suddenly saw a group of eight elephants, who were thirsty, and were not going to wait for the night… Every one scattered, and they moved in to drink…The site of a hot thirsty herd of Elephants taking a long cool drink is extremely satisfying, especially when you’ve spent the after noon digging!! This was the managers comment!!… It has been hard work keeping the wells for the Elephants as they do tend to destroy them every night… Not their fault they are so big!!…

Little snippets of news… The mini matriarch Lesanju, our first elephant that was rescued out of a well, and taken by helicopter to DSWT back in October 2006, has been taken to Voi, on her path back to freedom…We are delighted with this news!!.. The little Elephant mentioned in my last blog is also doing well, which is such great news considering the well water was very deep, but we keep our fingers crossed for her… Last week we had another young elephant about two years old, that was deserted by its herd down at the same place as the last one was rescued.. It was still alive, desperately thin, when the scout arrived, sadly it died before our team could get there…… We do not know if its mother was poached or he was sick..

The Grevy Zebra are in trouble again, to the west of the base, with another disease outbreak in the donkeys, the main symptom being constipation, they have found one Grevy dead so far.. One more bit of bad news, and almost can’t bear to bring this up, as so far we have not been part of this, but the bush meat trade has reared its ugly head in the area, with the scouts reporting, dikdiks, and guinea fowl being killed and sold in the towns, and missionaries buying warthog meat… This is not the first time we have heard of the missionaries involved in killing and eating wildlife…!! ?? YES, Im afraid so..

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Category: Milgis lugga, elephants | Date: Apr 20 2009 | By: milgistrust

Yes I’m afraid so…Despite having all the scouts that live any where near the luggas, heading down to open up wells for the wildlife every day, we have a new well victim…. Here with the story written by Moses Lesoloyia, Milgis Trust manager.. unfortunately do not have any pictures of the incident, so heres a couple taken in January 2009

The Dam that is now dry with the Rock of Ol Donyo Wuas behind..

On 17^th morning around 8 o clock we received a report from Lesanchu that there is a young elephant in a kisima, [well] down on the lower Elgerei. I contacted Helen with the news, and 5 of us piled into the landrover and headed off down the very slow track to Ndonyo Wuas. We took with us a blanket, ORS,[ rehydrate salts] spades, ropes, water and bottles. The kisima was dug in the now dry dam that the Elephants have been relying on, the bush around the dam is very thick which took us quite a time to cut through, but all the time we could hear the desperate crys of the Elephant struggling to get out of the Kisima… On arrival we assessed the 10 feet well and decided the fastest way to get it out is by throwing a loop round the youngster and to pull it out, the baby was thrashing around so much, making it too dangerous for somebody to go in. We made a loop with the thick rope [after the last big elephant rescue we made sure we had the right equipment] and put it round its chest as it raised its legs to try and come out. We pulled it out and it stood immediately and started chasing people around. Kosma and Lenkulate struggled to catch her but soon managed to calm her down.. We gave her 2 liters of ORS solution and went on giving it normal water the rest of the day. On our way to rescue the baby we had made a decision if she was in good enough shape, that we will try and link the baby with the mother. We ensured that no one touched it. We collected water from the well and stayed with it so that we could pour it on her if we heard the mother coming. Everybody was sure by 5 the mother will be there!!. We sent 3 scouts to try and find any eleys nearby, but with no luck… At one time the baby was urinating so frequently and we got worried that it had a big problem but after consulting Helen we were assured, that hopefully it wasn’t.. By 4 o clock we decided to move away abit from the well to set up our camp, below the Ndonyo Wuas rock and left three guys with the baby near the kisima. The rest of us went up the rock with binoculars to monitor any eleys coming, so that we could alert by radio the guys with the baby to pour the water on it, and dodge it and leave it to make a noise for the mother to come for it. We did this till 6.30 pm and darkness was already falling. We decided to move out of the thick bush because it was abit risky to stay in there as we were expecting all the usual Elephants to come in for water..

The Dam that the Elephants rely on at Ol Donyo Wuas.. South end of Ndotos behind. The dam is dry now and the Samburu have dug wells in the mud, for their livestock.. even though we have dug special wide wells for the Eleys in the main Lugga they insist on coming back to this dry natural dam.. that will fill up when the lugga floods..

2 people stayed on the higher bank of the of the dry dam so as to alert the rest of us if any eleys are coming in, and the rest of the group stayed with the baby in between the rock and the dam.. They stayed away from the baby so that it made a noise for the mother to hear, and were ready with their ‘running shoes’ should she come!!… By 9 we were losing hope and started thinking, maybe the eleys had followed the rain that was now falling on the Matthews range and the mother feared coming back alone. At 10.30 two bulls came in and stood for 5 minutes listening to the baby making a noise, but sadly it wasn’t their problem, so they drunk water from a different kisima and left. By this time every body was struggling to keep off mosquitoes, but we were here to do a serious job, and the advantage was, they helped keep us awake! We didn’t make a fire because we didn’t want to show our presence. We had taken dinner by 5. We stayed on and on till morning with no luck. We truly felt if the mother had come in we would have won the battle. This is something we are going to build on, by liaising with DSWT and try as much as possible to return babies to their mothers. But this time having had no luck, at 6.30 in the mining, we called Helen with the sad news, loaded her on the landy drove the 2 hours to the airstrip. We had given her another 2 liters of ORS solution and later at the airstrip another 2 liters of normal water. Finally the little eley fell asleep at the airstrip. . The Plane arrived to pick her up for her journey to the amazing DSWT orphanage in Nairobi, where Angela will keep us informed… Fingers crossed for the little surviver..All the people involved in the rescue were surprised that the mother didn’t come back, as this is very unusual with eleys and the following opinions were voiced.. .

• The mother feared coming back alone if the group went very far.
• Mother was old and not very strong due to drought
• Mother had previously lost a baby this way had so lost hope of this one too…

Unfortunately we won’t know… But the drought is probably not helping, with the fact that Nomadic people from all around, , especially from the Kaisut Desert, have come into this area, with thousands of camels, cows, goats, and sheep, and they are all trying to survive these hard times… There does seem to be a ” good agreement ” between the people and the wildlife, and every one sticks to it!!.. Wildlife have the use of the Lugga, and all that it gives at night, people by day…

BY the way the genet that was brought in to us about 3 weeks ago, it must gone out with its mother on one of its first nights out, and followed her into the well, but could not get out, is doing very well, and keeping me busy!.. It will be released at Elkanto when its old enough..

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Category: Desert warthog, Grevy's Zebra, Matthews range, Water holes, Wild Dog, elephants | Date: Mar 31 2009 | By: milgistrust

Just wish we had our dam project up and running, but thank goodness this morning there are exciting clouds billowing over the Matthews Range.. Finally we REALLY hope for rain throughout.. All I am getting news of, is wild animals desperately in need of water… Just to mention a few of the problems…. Two young Grevy Zebras died trying to get to water, on the east side of the Ndotos… And many more animals falling into wells, and not being able to get out .. On the lower Milgis a big elephant spent the night battling to get out, which it did luckily as we did not enjoy the thought of having a repeat of the one in September! Elephant in desperate situation is saved…. PHEW!!! I have added some pictures on the blog which you may like to see….. Another very pregnant Elephant that was going down a very steep path having drunk in the Langata Nanyuki to the south of the Ndotos, slipped down the rocks and landed badly, her front legs were under her body, all her weight was on her neck, and she could not get up… She died before the scouts could find help.. A warthog, which died sadly but two wild dogs where pulled out of a well in Nairimirimo, and released I am happy to tell you… Unfortunately we have got no further with our investigations on our wild dog that was tied up for two days, and supposedly taken by KWS?? [See my last blog] I’m afraid the plot is thickening, and please be patient, we are determined to find out what is going on… But have discovered that there is a trade in wild dogs, going to markets where rich people want these beautiful animals as pets!!..Which explains why we have heard of people looking for puppies… Going back to our ‘poor’ dog… It sounds like she was pregnant, somebody who tried to get a job with us a few years ago, with a letter from the KWS, [ who knows how genuine] suggesting we took him on to look after the wild dogs!!, He made the phone call, and refused them to let it go… What we haven’t managed to establish is whether the dog died or was taken… Our scout has been taken on a ‘wild goose chase’ and he will go back to investigate… He was told the dog died, but when he asked to see the body it did not seem to exist!!… Yesterday a young genet cat was found in a well near the base, which was brought in…Its too small to release but we will as soon as its ready to go… LETS HOPE IT POURS WITH RAIN… PLEASE EVERY ONE WAVE YOUR MAGIC WANDS!! We need the rain so badly..

2 responses so far

Category: Forest, elephants | Date: Mar 09 2009 | By: milgistrust

Anna, Thank you, Thankyou for your kind donation… So appreciated.. And sorry to have disappeared.. I temporarily lost my head, and left my computer, after I was given the news that our little kudu had died… His mother had been killed by hunting dogs, and he arrived very dehydrated, and had a sore stomach, which we just could not get right, and he died after a week.. We are not having much luck at the moment, Here is a picture of the beautiful animal, at the scouts meeting..

Every two months we bring all the scouts back to base, to catch up with all that is going on in their various areas.. This means collectively they cover about 2000 kms by foot to get to the base, and back… If you are interested you can check on our main website on the map… We have 4 scouts on the west side of the Matthews range, 6 in Nairimirimo/Suiyan areas to the west of the Laana Nikan [Seiya] Lugga, between the Matthews and Kirisia hills… 3 between the Matthews and Ndoto Mountains, on the Milgis Lugga, 3 along the east side of the Ndotos, 4 west of the Ndoto mountains, and one on the south end of the Ol Donyo Maras…The base is on the Junction of the Laana Nikan/Parsaloi Luggas where it becomes the Milgis… As you can imagine they pick up quite alot of info on their way to get here, plus what has happened in their areas during the last two months and at the meetings there is generally an awful lot to catch up on… the meeting quite often goes on till the evening… The big news this month is this Sandalwood Scandal!!

For months I have been hearing of the threat!!… And finally on the 10 February the scout from Nairimirmo was tipped off !!. Lorries coming in to the east side of the Kirisia hills, to collect already cut Sandal wood, cut by community members. He went to the place with a home guard [ a police reservist]…He informed the base of the problem…Things became quite dangerous for them as they tried to stop the lorry leaving, they were offered bribes of quite considerable money, but he persevered, and kept in touch with the base station into the night, who in turn managed to raise the alarm by signalling with a torch, to Elkanto.. Finally they got to the KWS station, at Latakwen, who immediately headed off into the black of the night to help… on arrival they took over the lorry, and stayed with it for two days… The outcome is still a mystery to us??!!

Our two scouts in the Suiyan area reported a rush of Elephants back from the Kirisia hills down the Parsaloi Lugga having seen the tracks heading up a few days before… They went to investigate what was up and found a week old dead elephant… but with the tusks still in… Must be Samburu, as they had not cut the tusks out, see my last blog…..There was also signs of human tracks around.. They pulled to see if the tusks would come out, and 1 did.. They hid it well, and we called the KWS from Latakwen.. The next morning they went back to find that poachers had been following their tracks!, and had managed to pull the second tusk out.. Which they duly hid, and then went to try and find the first one… Luckily they did not find it, but our scouts found theirs! The two scouts were able to hand the tusks over to KWS… What we think is the Elephant must have been killed as the herd headed to the hills, but they must have come across more poachers further up, where we have reported poaching going on before, and come back down to relative safety.. These developments, elephant poaching, are VERY worrying and very serious…

We have also investigated what could have happened to the mother of the new born elephant calf that we took to the Sheldrick orphanage on the 15th feb.. Who sadly did not make it, with stomach problems and pneumonia.. There are a few thoughts to what happened to the mother and also why the little one died.. A few herds of Elephants that had come from the south east of the Matthews, were heading for the Ndoto mountains… Two reasons for this… One could have been poachers, and possibly the mother was killed, or too frightened to wait for such a small one..or the fact that the last bit of rain that we had at full moon was in the Ndoto mountains…If this is so why did the baby get left behind.. Our scouts can’t agree.. Some say that she got stuck in an erosion drain, but others say it was not deep enough, and the mother would have got her out…But at this stage her tracks were not around??.. others say that the mother was too young, she could have deserted the calf, before it got the all important colostrum milk… What ever happened sadly the little calf, so young, still pink behind the ears, was two days without its mother, we have found out that it was fed tea, and uji [maizemeal porridge], by the people who first found it… These people were new comers who had come in from the desert for greener pastures and had not got the message about not giving a young elephant any thing and they were only doing their best to feed the baby on what they had … Again every one is extremely sad for this loss… We live and learn and will do a new campaign throughout to explain about Elephants…

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Category: Conservation Awareness, Forest, Grevy's Zebra, Samburu, Wild Dog, elephants | Date: Feb 20 2009 | By: milgistrust

Uh oh, Luca you are going to be busy!!…You cut these trees down in Samburuland, now you have to pay back the traditional way! Its one goat per tree and and a cleansing ceremony, in which … you need to slaughter the goat/sheep, mix the stomach contents, with the fat and pour the contents round each tree… Then you have be smeared in fat, and this can only be done by somebody who is ‘unclean’ … [Unclean meaning somebody who may have killed somebody, or has no home, a straggler lets say… In Kitchen Swahili we would call it a ‘tangatangera’…We have been delving further into the archives of the old traditional ways of conservation and its fascinating… WHERE AND WHY IS IT GOING WRONG?? … The Milgis Trust is going to try and ‘travel back down this old road’ and bring these strong rules back..

1… As I said above if you cut the branches off a tree, or cut it down you have to be cleansed, Moses Lesoloyia, our manager saw it in Baragoi area when he was a child… Woe betide you if you cut a tree that has been used for a big meeting, or special ceremony… Its just not done!

2… You can not kill an animal unless you intend to eat it… This is why the Zebras have survived in Samburu areas, as they will not eat any horse like animal..

3… If you hack the tusks out of a dead elephant, you will NEVER be able to go to a traditional Samburu ceremony again… You have to wait for the Elephant to rot, and you pull them out.. When the two Elephants died near the Milgis base in may, when the KWS [ kenya wildlife service ] arrived to check on the situation, and to take the tusks, they had to go back to base to find somebody of a different tribe to cut the tusks out, as the three men who came happened to be Samburu!! They could not risk leaving them on the elephant just in case a poacher or person looking for tusks to sell on, took them..

4.. If you kill a black animal you are unclean… IE if you kill a wild dog, then your children can not wear the traditional black skin during the circumcision time.. Also If somebody in your family kills an ostrich, then forever the children can not wear ostrich feathers in their head band after being circumcised..

The traditional black skin worn after the circumcision ceremony, and the ostrich feathers, LABARTAC, in the head band… possibly the guy on the left, comes from a family that killed an ostrich!! The Lesoloyia family can not wear these feathers because someone way back they don’t even know who, killed an ostrich…

This is a strange one!… If a grey animal comes into your boma/enclosure round your house.. This is a bad omen!… this includes dikdik, hare,warthog,elephant,rhino.. and any others.. They have to slaughter a goat… mix the blood, stomach contents, and fat together, and pour this mixture around the perimeter, and the elders will bless the boma… If you are knocked down by any of these grey animals you will be smeared with this same mixture, and again this has to be done by an unclean/hopeless person!! [literally translated] ie he is not going to lose any more by touching this concoction!!

We have a scout meeting at the end of tis month and will be talking about these traditions, and how we can bring them back… If you haven’t read the blog 21/12/08 it has lots more!!

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Category: Errosion, elephants | Date: Feb 16 2009 | By: milgistrust

As we flew in my Cessna 182 [ small four seater aircraft] into Wilson airport, in Nairobi, this was what I told the tower as I requested landing permission, and that I wanted to come strait in!! The lady in the tower thought she had heard wrong, but eventually when she realised, was very helpful in giving me priority!!…Yes.. sadly another baby elephant has lost its mother and herd, and yesterday we took it down to Daphne Sheldrick… We have not found out exactly the circumstances of how it came about that she got left behind, but what we were told is she fell down one of these dangerous erosion gullies, as per my last blog…Did I put my ‘black’ tongue on it.??. Too sad for words to hear about another elephant found lost and hungry, way down the Milgis Lugga, at a place called Marti Dorop, at 9 am Saturday… We got the message on the radio at 6 pm…and I was told that Lesuuda, one of our scouts was on his way down to pick her up with the KWS team from Latakwen…But no news of how old it was, how big etc.. 7.45 on a very crackly radio, all I could hear was that they had not reached the place yet… So we had to wait till the morning… I spoke to Daphne and Angela at the D.S.W.T. [David Sheldrick wildlife trust] to warn them of the news.. It went down badly!, as literally in the last two days, two other young elephants had been brought in, and they are over whelmed with baby elephants from around the country… But when I suggested we tried to find the herd, Daphne was adamant that it was not a good idea, as it already had been too long, and with the smell of humans on the ely, the herd actually may kill it.. I did not sleep all night, wondering if I was going to beable to get the baby into my aeroplane, and at what stage I was going to have to admit it was too big!! Could Lesuuda judge whether or not it was too big!! It was already a one hour flight from where I was, but hoped at least we could help with the flying…

The next morning, as soon as it was clear enough to communicate [ for some reason its impossible to hear on HF radios at night] We got the message that the very little female, barely a week to ten days old, was at the Milgis runway waiting to be collected… After all the size was no problem..!! When we arrived there was a big crowd at the runway… amazing how many people can ‘come out of the woodwork, in such a remote place!!.. The little Ely was just too sweet, trumpeting with excitement!! adorable! But very hungry… We decided to get her to her new home quick quick!! We put her on a mattress behind the front seats, standing, with two people holding her, put a blanket over her as we started the engine… Not a worry though, and as soon as we took off she fell asleep, and eventually about 10 minutes before we landed she lay down and went into a deep sleep on Lesuudas lap…Did not even wake up on my rather bumpy landing at Wilson airport!… Lesuuda told me that he and her had not slept or eaten all night, and even he was ready to collapse!.. But he still had the energy to go and see where his little friends [ Elephants bond to kindness very quickly] new home would at the DSWT and also to learn more about looking after these ‘minute’ fragile creatures!!…. Angela will give us the rest of the news when she can!!

Lesuuda and his hungry friend on the Milgis runway.. We have learnt not to try to feed these youngsters with cows milk, as this does not agree with their stomachs…only special milk formula which one doesn’t find in the bush! so shes only had water, for the last 24 hours…

It was a bit of a squash in the plane!!

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