Nairobi's Wonderful Elephant Orphanage

I don't know about you, but I'm a sucker for touching animal stories and this National Geographic article about the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust an elephant orphanage in Nairobi. The stories in the article are a must-read for any animal lover.

The nursery takes in orphan elephants from all over Kenya, many victims of poaching or human-wildlife conflict, and raises them until they are no longer milk dependent. Once healed and stabilized at the nursery, they are moved more than a hundred miles southeast to two holding centers in Tsavo National Park. There, at their own pace, which can be up to eight to ten years, they gradually make the transition back into the wild. The program is a cutting-edge experiment in cross-species empathy that only the worst extremes of human insensitivity could have necessitated.

Be sure to read the whole thing to learn all kinds of fascinating information about the group, the elephants and the amazing people working to improve the lives of these majestic creatures.

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