But in the meantime, I wanted to give you a snapshot of our year — the big missions and the everyday moments that made it a success.

– Angela Sheldrick

2025 began with babies, babies, and more babies. We are now in a wonderful phase of reaping all that we have sown over the years. The orphaned elephants we rescued early in the century (a surreal phrase to write) are now grown up, living wild, and raising their own families. Many are becoming first-time mums; others have a brood of babies and even grandbabies.

The babies came throughout the year. It started with a boom in Umani, continued in Ithumba, and ended with a grand crescendo in Voi. All told, we met 18 grandcalves and one great-grandcalf born in 2025. Nine babies were born to first-time mums, while others are already several generations into their wild families: Matriarch Yatta welcomed her fourth calf in March, followed by a grandchild born to her eldest daughter in December. (Already this year, three more grandbabies have arrived — to first time mums Sagala and Arruba, and to Edie, who is now a mother of five!)

Most humbling of all is how the orphans give back to us. Immediately after giving birth, they return home to introduce us to their new babies, as if they understand how important these moments are to us.

For these dynasties didn’t happen overnight — it has taken more than two decades to get to this point. Every wild calf born reflects not only the years of day-and-night care for each individual, but also the large-scale conservation work that goes on to ensure they have a safe wilderness to return to. The fact that our orphans choose to introduce us to the precious fruits of our labours is a gift indeed.

While these next chapters are unfolding in the wilds of Tsavo, many other stories are just beginning. Following the last drought, we experienced a relative respite from rescues for a few years, but 2025 brought a number of new orphans into the fold.

At the Nursery, we welcomed Kipekee (our delightful egomaniac — never have we met an elephant more spoiled or adored!), Arthi, Daba, Alia, and Tytan the black rhino, alongside his best friend, Notty the zebra. Kaluku’s herd expanded with tiny Kaikai (a Lemeki-in-the-making), Pips the giraffe, and some other faces we will introduce in due course. Voi turned into an unexpected hospital wing, with the rescue of injured elephants Chapeyu and Serenget.

For all the lives saved, there were also some heartbreaking losses. The death of little Raha, the mauled black rhino who we spent three years fighting for, hit us hard.

Seeing the orphaned elephants and rhinos padding about, swaddled in their colourful blankets or safely tucked into their cosy rooms, it is easy to forget the challenging circumstances and harrowing rescue operations that brought them to our door. For instance, the mission to save Chapeyu was herculean in every sense of the word. It was also a reminder of the far-reaching team effort required where elephants are involved. At about eight years old, he was one of the oldest orphans we had ever rescued. But we saw a life hanging in the balance, so cruelly harmed by humans, and knew we had to do everything in our power to save it.

Chapeyu was first reported by our SWT/KWS Kulalu Anti-Poaching Team, who spotted a young adult elephant with a deep spear wound in his front leg. He was alone and struggling to walk. After Roan patrolled overhead to assess the situation, Taru flew the SWT/KWS Tsavo Mobile Vet Unit to the scene. The initial plan was to treat him in situ, but given the gravity of his injuries, Dr Limo determined that he had little chance of recovering in the wild.

And so began a 10-month rescue-and-recovery operation. Chapeyu was taken to our Voi Reintegration Unit, where he was settled into his own ‘hospital wing’. We didn’t quite know what to expect with our extra-large patient, but we knew we had to try.

What happened surprised all of us. This was a well and truly wild elephant who had been terribly hurt by the human hand. And yet, he understood that we were there to help him. Chapeyu was a model patient, accepting the presence of his Keepers and keeping his calm even after multiple follow-up treatments.

In fact, he became quite fond of his accommodations! By August, his injury had healed sufficiently and we decided to test the waters and see if he might like to join the orphans out in the bush. Chapeyu flatly refused. We didn’t press the matter, knowing he would venture out when he felt ready. That time finally arrived in December — after ten full months of convalescing in our care. He has visited since, mingling with the herd just like any other ex-orphan.

From beginning to end, saving Chapeyu was an enormous operation — and it is but one among many, many such life-saving operations that unfold throughout the year. In partnership with the KWS, our Mobile Vet Units work in key ecosystems across Kenya. Permanent teams are installed in Tsavo, the Mara, Amboseli, Mount Kenya, the Rift Valley, and Meru, while our Aerial Unit facilitates treatments in remote and inaccessible areas.

In 2025 alone, Vet Units conducted more than 675 treatments, attending to over 1,460 animals. Every year, our caseload increases — a testament to need in the field, but also our presence and capabilities. In fact, Dr Limo and the Tsavo team were so busy that we established the new Southern Vet Unit in June 2025. Under the leadership of Dr Lawi Kiplimo, the Southern Unit operates in the Greater Tsavo Conservation Area and where needed across southern Kenya, offering a rapid response with support from our Aerial Unit.

Indeed, the Aerial Unit is the crucial thread that weaves together our conservation projects and makes us vastly more effective in the field. An aircraft played a pivotal role in nearly every major operation last year, from the four-day mission to save a trapped bull to the rescue of Arthi, which led to another life-saving treatment.

Our pilots fight fires, conduct emergency medivacs, and mitigate human-wildlife conflict. Because of our aerial reach, not much misses us — no case need go untreated, no emergency unanswered. In 2025, SWT helicopters responded to over 110 human–elephant conflict incidents, successfully returning nearly 400 elephants back into protected areas. Over the course of the year, our Aerial Unit flew nearly 350,000 kilometres, logging 2,704 hours in flight.

Of course, underpinning everything is the work that unfolds on the ground. In partnership with the KWS, we operate 29 Anti-Poaching Teams in Tsavo, Meru, and on the coast. We also fund rangers in threatened ecosystems across the country, from the Mara to Laikipia to Amu. Our teams aren’t just driving from A to B — they are literal boots on the ground, following poacher’s tracks and forensically canvassing entire landscapes for threats. In 2025, they conducted over 7,000 foot patrols, assisted in 213 veterinary interventions, and supported three search-and-rescue operations (including this successful mission to find a lost child).

Last year, we also welcomed two new canines to our specialised Canine Unit. Bela ascribes to a ‘work hard, play hard’ philosophy — she is goofy and joyful, then suddenly locks into focus when a job arises. Abby, meanwhile, is reserved, quiet, and all business. We are so excited to have them on the team and already they have proven to be incredibly valuable talents in the field.

In 2025, we ramped up our rhino conservation efforts. Black rhinos are a critically endangered species that flirted with extinction not too long ago. Kenya has set an ambitious goal to increase the national black rhino population to 2,000 by 2037. We are currently halfway to that goal. That number includes orphaned black rhinos currently in our care — Maxwell, Apollo, Chamboi, and Tytan. While Maxwell is blind and has a forever home with us (we call him our Nursery patriarch), our other three boys will grow up, go wild, and support the growth of their species.

With fragmented populations and the ever-looming threat of poaching, successful rhino regeneration requires dedication, innovation, and collaboration. In partnership with the KWS and key conservation partners across Kenya, we are helping to bring the species back from the brink. In 2025, our pilots flew 73,000 kilometres on rhino surveillance patrols, logging 501 hours. We also provided aerial support for Kenya’s largest ever rhino notching and tagging operation, in which 90 black rhinos were located, darted, tagged, and notched in Tsavo West.

This was also a busy year on the community front. Expanding our support of Tsavo-area hospitals, we funded two large-scale donations of medical equipment and supplies in 2025. These donations ensure our communities have well-equipped, comfortable places to access healthcare.

We continued to support the next generation of Kenyans — an aspect of our community outreach that we place great emphasis on. Through our school lunch program, we provided daily meals to 16,867 children from 76 schools in 2025. We led 82 field trips into conservation areas, introducing young Kenyans to their natural heritage, and financed the secondary education of 12 children and the university education of three gifted students from local communities bordering the parks. The next generation will shape the future of our wildlife and wild spaces, and it all starts with educational foundations and access to nature at an early age.

I haven’t even touched on all the crucial ‘invisible’ work — the water troughs and bowsers that ensure our wild friends have safe places to drink, the thousands of seedlings nurtured and planted for reforestation, the roads and airstrips maintained so field teams can do their jobs, the fencelines patrolled to keep wildlife and communities safe. Morning to night, our workshops were humming to keep machines, vehicles, and aircrafts in motion. From the canteen to the logistics team, so much goes on behind the scenes to make the very real impact you see in the field.

And of course, we are looking bigger — far beyond a year, but generations into the future. Habitat loss is the single greatest threat to wildlife around the world. Here in Kenya, we are committed to saving precious landscapes before they are lost forever. While we preserve the integrity of national parks like Tsavo, we are also working to preserve vulnerable ecosystems like the Shimba Hills, Arabuko Sokoke Forest, and sweeping boundaries along protected areas.

Landscape preservation is complex work that yields long-term results. But with that said, we are already seeing a difference in places that are relatively ‘new’ under our remit. In the Shimba Hills, for instance, our anti-poaching patrols and fencelines are already paying off: elephants, zebras, and buffalos, who were long-elusive during daylight hours, are now regular visitors at our waterholes.

The year ended with a truly humbling and wholly unexpected surprise: I was honoured the Elder of the Order of the Burning Spear (E.B.S.) by President William Ruto. This recognition — Kenya’s highest civilian state decoration — belongs to every person at Sheldrick Wildlife Trust, to the shared purpose and many hands who make our mission possible. It was also a telling reminder of how Kenya cares about its wildlife and wild spaces. So many countries around the world do not take their approach, and we never take it for granted.

As I write this, we are fully in the swing of 2026. Already, orphans have been rescued, new grandbabies have been born, and wild lives have been saved in the field. Poor rains have set us up for a challenging year ahead, but I know we are up to the task.