Choose your region

Three elephants have started the process of becoming accustomed to the moving/translocation lorry, for the move to Tsavo at the end of this month. The elephants chosen to move to Ithumba are Malima, Mapia and Kuishi. Even though they are not quite the oldest, they are the right age, and most of all we feel they will benefit from the presence of the older orphans in Tsavo, as they are becoming quite unruly and not listening to the Keepers very well these days either. Malima can be very naughty around visitors, and so can Kuishi, but Kuishi is also a bit of a bully to the youngsters sometimes as well. During their first training session of having their milk bottles inside the lorry compartments, Mapia just walked straight on as he followed his bottle, Kuishi got about half way in but Malima didn’t want to get onto the lorry at all. She flatly refused and decided instead to walk back to the forest without having any of her milk at all!

Maktao doesn’t seem to like Kiko the giraffe at all. He seems very afraid of him, and whenever he sees him he runs away either towards the Keepers or towards the older orphans for protection. Sometimes Kiko doesn’t like to listen to the Keepers and likes do his own thing, and then the intervention from some of the older elephant orphans is much appreciated. Tagwa, Jotto and Ambo took it upon themselves to intervene today. When Maktao spotted Kiko approaching, he started rumbling and ran towards the Keepers. Jotto realized what had disturbed Maktao and responded by trying to warn Kiko from a distance. Kiko kept walking towards them however, and it took Tagwa and Ambo charging towards him to send him away back towards the forest.

The elephant babies were very happy today when they came running down to the mud bath area for their milk at 11am, and found lots of freshly heaped loose soil for them to play on. They had lots of fun, especially Dololo and Maktao who seemed to appreciate the soil the most. Dololo was much more active than usual, and went rolling on one heap of soil to the next, running away and then back again to roll on the next pile. Maktao had fun trying to climb on top of anyone else who tried to roll on the ground.

Emoli is still being a naughty boy and this might mean he is moved to Tsavo sooner than expected if he keeps up that kind of behaviour, just like Esampu and Mteto! He doesn’t seem to like poor little Larro very much, he keeps head-butting and pushing her, and is so bullish with the others. When he pushed Larro today it was Enkesha and Larro who ran to help the little girl.

Today the rain came out of nowhere and it rained quite hard for a short time. Larro decided to go and play in a stream away from the others later on, but Sagala walked away from the herd and came to stand by her side. Kuishi followed her and for a while the duo watched over the little one until she was done with her bath, and then they escorted her back to the stockades, as the others had already gone.

Ziwadi has started settling down in the herd. This morning when she reached the forest she was much more relaxed compared to previous days, and spent some time in the company of Luggard, Musiara, Dololo and Jotto. Jotto is a gentle young patriarch, full of affection for the younger ones and he enjoys protecting them. He enjoys holding Larro close to him and allows her to see what he is eating most of the time as well, as she stretches her trunk to his mouth to investigate. 

Malima is still not fully entering the translocation lorry. Mapia and Kuishi are walking on board without any hesitation for their milk bottles, but Malima is still very wary. It is going to take her some time to get used to it.

As the training continues for the three orphans that are becoming accustomed to the translocation/moving lorry, Malima continues to be as reluctant as ever to enter the lorry. The Keepers enjoyed watching her today as she stretched her entire body as far as possible trying to reach her milk bottle without entering the trunk. She stretched so far that she even came down on her knees and reaching forward with her trunk trying to grab her bottle from her Keeper. All her efforts were in vain as she had to stand back up and enter the truck to eventually enjoy her milk bottle. 

Mapia and Kuishi, who seemed to take no notice of Malima’s antics, enjoyed their bottles of milk happily within the truck. Mapia guzzled his milk and then tried to steal some of Kuishi’s through the bars but fortunately couldn’t reach. Kuishi seemed to get annoyed by Mapia and began to rumble at him, so the Keepers chose to move the young bull away allowing her to finish her milk in peace. 

Some of the orphans can be quite skittish when they are out in the field; one such orphan is Maktao. Maktao, who has become good friends with Emoli, will react to the smallest noise when he is in the field and will cause such a stir with the herd that all the orphans get a fright and charge off in different directions. 

Today, when the orphans were enjoying their afternoon mud bath, Kiko decided to join them. Maktao got the biggest fright when Kiko made his way down to the waterhole. He trumpeted loudly and darted off away from Kiko. This frightened all the orphans who began to trumpet loudly and run for safety. Jotto and Musiara seemed to be the first to realise that it was only Kiko as they started to rumble at him. Tagwa, Kuishi, Malima and Ambo appeared to notice Jotto and Musiara calmly rumbling at Kiko, so they calmed down too and moved closer to where he was standing. With all the orphans now resuming their normal activities, Kiko appeared to lose interest in the herd and decided to move off to another area and see what was happening there. 

This bright day started with all the orphans full of excitement as they walked out to the forest. As the herd browsed Tagwa, the matriarch of the herd, walked them deeper and further into the forest, with her friend Sagala gently encouraging the little baby Larro along towards Tagwa as well. After a while Kuishi came over and took over from Sagala to guard over baby Larro, together with Maisha as well. Actions like this show us how loved baby Larro is by all the females in the herd. As the day went on the two big bulls Mapia and Ambo began their usual ‘sizing up’ of one another, play-fighting and trying to prove to one another who is the strongest.

We woke to another chilly day this morning as all the elephants walked to the forest as usual to browse, little Larro stayed behind to keep out of the drizzle. She stayed behind in one of the big stockades with Luggard and Ziwadi until the rain stopped later in the morning.

As the 11am milk feed approached, the Keepers realized Malima, Kuishi and Mapia were missing from the group. The Keepers looked in the bushes for them everywhere, only to discover that they had walked by themselves back to the stockades to the translocation lorry where we have been practicing their feeding, where they were feeding on the lucerne pellets on the truck which we have put there to encourage them on! Since they have been having their milk feed in that lorry, and after have been given some of the tasty pellets, they just decided to take themselves there a bit early and without their Keepers having to escort them; this is just another example of how clever elephants are, even our young babies.

It was a beautiful sunny morning as the orphans made their way out to the forest. Mapia and Ambo, and Jotto and Tagwa respectively started their own wrestling matches. The bulls were so busy with their games that they only stopped for a brief interim during their 9am milk feeding time. 

A few minutes before their midday mud bath the weather began to change, and some very heavy clouds began to roll in. The younger group managed to finish their milk and make their way back to the forest before the heavy rains began, but the older group wasn’t so lucky. With all the thunder Kuishi and Sagala were very apprehensive about coming down and kept trying to turn back to the forest. However, once they saw Malima calmly walking down, unbothered by the weather, they decided to follow her down and have their milk. Once Tagwa, Ambo, Kuishi and Malima had finished their milk, they suddenly became extremely playful and started to charge around the mud bath area in all directions. 

Maxwell had a very busy evening and morning. Throughout the night he enjoyed a very long mud bath thanks to the heavy rains and in the morning, he was having fun charging around his stockade as the orphans came out their stables. Ambo, Jotto and Musiara decided to join in on Maxwell’s games. They began pulling at the one gate of his stockade and as he would approach, they would charge off to his other gate and he would chase them. The four continued this game for a good few minutes, all enjoying running up and down after one another. When the orphans made their way out to the forest, Maxwell decided to have a little nap and fell asleep at the top of his stockade. 

During their midday mud bath, Tamiyoi was enjoying rolling around in the dust as Maktao ad Musiara began to climb on her back. The three played like this for the entire half hour, and when it was time to make their way back to the forest they happily got up and walked away. 

Malima has become used to the transportation lorry and she happily takes her milk within the vehicle these days. All three orphans, Mapia, Kuishi and Malima are now completely used to the lorry. 

As soon as the orphans made their way out into the forest Maktao and Musiara began their games. The two were spotted charging around in a game of hide and seek before they started a strength testing match, keeping the two busy for the entire morning. 

The three graduate orphans, Mapia, Malima, and Kuishi have become so used to taking their milk in the translocation lorry that they seem to have formed their own little herd and know that they will always receive their milk separate to the other orphans. The three have started to receive supplement Lucerne pellets after their bottles, which keeps them busy in the truck for a few minutes before they make their way back to the forest. Once back in the forest they are quite happy to stand back whilst the rest of the herd finish their milk bottles. 

Today, however, once Mapia, Kuishi, and Malima had finished their midday bottles of milk they went off further into the forest and the Keepers had to go look for them to get them to go down for their midday mud bath. When Tagwa and Jotto eventually saw the three running down to the mud bath, they trumpeted in excitement and went to greet them. 

The three went off on their own adventure again at 5pm and were found browsing some distance away with Ambo. The Keepers quickly ushered them back to the stockade compound where they all happily entered their stables for the evening. 

It has been one month since Ziwadi was rescued, and she is slowly adapting to Nursery life and can still be quite shy when greeting the other orphans. This morning as the all the orphans were getting ready to head out to the forest Maktao and Kiasa, her neighbours, were trying to greet her but she kept shying away and running to the front of the group. 

Whilst in the field, the Keepers and orphans saw two lionesses chasing a warthog. This caused a huge stir as one of the warthogs ran towards the orphans, and they all ran off in fear, Ziwadi included. The poor young calf ran off so far that it took the Keepers some time to find her. The Keepers eventually found her, lying on the ground as she appeared to have a sore tummy and was bloated. She was given some medication that helped with her tummy and she appears to have perked up since. 

During their midday mud bath, as the older group made their way down to the water hole, they came across two wild geese on the path. The geese have been around the last few days as they seem to have found some food near the water hole. Ambo and Kuishi came across the geese first and started to trumpet and ran back towards the forest. Meanwhile, Enkesha, seemingly worried about Ambo and Kuishi, came barreling up towards the geese scaring them off and clearing the way for the second group to come down. 

Mapia and Kuishi have never been particularly close or shown much interest in each other, but now that they have begun their training together to enter the relocation lorry this seems to have changed somewhat. Now you will find that Mapia, Kuishi and even Malima sometimes can all be browsing separately from the others, and Mapia and Kuishi are spending more and more time together. Mapia used to preoccupy himself with wrestling with Ambo, but now he prefers to spend his time in the company of these two girls.

Enkesha has always been a predictable baby, and we mean that in a good way. She has never caused any trouble and is a gentle little girl. Sometimes she can be happy and playful and interactive with the others, like today and how she was playing with Maktao, and sometimes she prefers to be on her own and browses quietly away from the herd.

After the orphans arrived in the forest this morning, most of them began browsing. Jotto and Kuishi decided to start playing together however, and they enjoyed some pushing and hide and seek games, running about in the bushes for quite some time. Tagwa and Ambo must have envied their game as they are the ones who enjoy playing with Jotto the most. Before approaching Kuishi and Jotto, they entwined their trunks together as if in conversation, before marching together over to where the other two were playing with the intention of interrupting their game. Ambo took on Jotto while Tagwa approached Kuishi. She drove her off into the bushes to concentrate on browsing and make her forget her game, and as soon as Kuishi began browsing, Tagwa left her and went to find Jotto to begin playing with him.

Tagwa still loves Sattao over all the other babies in the Nursery however. Sattao had pushed Maisha by mistake, but Maisha turned and shoved Sattao away. He shouted out and because Tagwa was standing just close by she came running over. When she found Maisha standing close to Sattao she knew she was the reason Sattao had yelled, and she drove her away from the herd by poking her with her tusks.

When Luggard and Musiara came out of their rooms this morning before any of the other elephants, they decided to have some fun all alone before the others came out of their rooms as well. They engaged in a pushing game, before Musiara started what can only be described as a ‘you can’t catch me’ game. This went on until Jotto and Ambo came out, and interrupted their games.

Nabulu is still not being very nice towards Ziwadi. It is difficult when you see Nabulu running over and pushing Ziwadi for no reason at all, but we are always quick to reprimand her and tell her that is wrong. She was lucky that none of the other older girls like Tagwa or Kuishi saw her as they were leading the herd at the front, or she would have been in even more trouble. Tagwa, Sagala and Malima are very disciplinary older females and they don’t like any of the others picking on each other. 

Kiko was so naughty today. He usually comes out of his boma to go and join the elephants in the forest after the main visiting time, and today was no different. He knows that most of the elephants don’t enjoy his company so now he has decided to make a game out of it. Mukkoka, Maktao, Dololo, Larro and even Sattao keep running away from him and they did the same today. He kept coming back towards the elephants and the babies kept running away so there was no peace to be had. Kuishi, Malima and some of the other older ones, as well as some of the Keepers, kept driving him away as he was disrupting the younger ones from browsing, but he never listens to anyone! Eventually he decided to follow his own Keeper and they walked back to the stockade compound where Kiko started to browse.

There was a lot of activity early in the morning today as everyone was up by 2:30am preparing for the move of Malima, Kuishi and Mapia to Ithumba. The day was finally here where we would bid goodbye to these babies, as they prepare for the next stage of their long journey back to the wild, in the fullness of time. All the babies noticed the activity however; Maktao and Kiasa were the first to notice that all the Keepers were up, and they alerted the others by rumbling, and eventually yelling. Kiasa would not settle down at all and was wondering up and down her room. By 3am everything was ready and the chosen three were brought out of their night stockades and followed their Keepers to the lorry where they knew their bottles would be, just like they had practiced. It was a very quick and smooth boarding of the three babies without any hiccups. Malima, who at first had been apprehensive about the lorry, was even ahead of the other two to board first and have her bottle. The door was closed behind her and still she showed no sign of concern. At 3:20am we bid goodbye to our Malima, Kuishi and Mapia as the wheels of the lorry began to roll away bound for Ithumba.

In the morning when the orphans came out of their stockades, they seemed crowded together out in the forest as if having conversations. All that time Larro was squeezed between Tagwa and Sagala. The whole herd was calm and peaceful and they carried on with their day browsing quietly in small groups.