Elephants today face an increasingly complex world, between shrinking habitats, harsher droughts, and persistent threats like poaching. Protecting them means working on two fronts: securing the landscapes they call home, and being there the moment something goes wrong.

Last year alone, our teams shepherded nearly 400 elephants off community land and back to safety, attended to 260 elephants for injuries in the field, and supported 17 extractions of elephants trapped in dams, wells, and mud. This was one such operation: a herculean, four-day mission battling time, terrain, and rising tides to pull off one of our most challenging rescues to date.

Raising an elephant is a remarkable undertaking. Our Keepers serve as guardians and guides, dedicating upwards of a decade of care to each orphan to help them grow into healthy, well-adjusted adults who will be accepted by wild herds.

Our founder, Dame Daphne Sheldrick, was the first person in the world to successfully raise an orphaned African elephant. Today, we proudly build upon the husbandry she pioneered. We have raised more than 300 orphans to date — each one the result of years of dedication, decades of expertise, and a multi-generational commitment to elephant conservation.

Scenes like this are increasingly rare. Just five years ago, African elephants were reclassified as an endangered species, following decades of decline across the continent.

But the story is different here in Tsavo, Kenya’s largest national park and surrounding wilderness. With dedicated protection — and, crucially, vast spaces to accommodate them — elephant populations are growing.

These success stories don’t happen spontaneously or in isolation. We are proud to work alongside the Kenya Wildlife Service and conservation partners to protect Kenya’s great landscapes and the giants who call them home. This includes daily anti-poaching and aerial patrols, human-wildlife conflict mitigation, drought alleviation, veterinary treatments, and emergency response and rescue.

This is the result of committed, collaborative conservation: flourishing elephant populations, living wild and free.

Every orphan we rescue carries the possibility of entire elephant dynasties that will follow in their footsteps. To date, we have met 94 ‘grandcalves’ born to orphans we have rescued, rehabilitated, and reintegrated back into the wild. Remarkably, our elephant mums almost always choose to return home upon giving birth, to share their joy with the people who raised them.

By saving one life, we pave the way for future families to flourish. For a species that revolves around family, as elephants do, this is the greatest gift we can offer.

Prevention, detection, and intervention go hand-in-hand. While we tackle the threats that put elephants in harm’s way, we also answer the call when they need our help.

Every morning, our eyes in the skies and boots on the ground patrol Kenya’s wild spaces, scanning the landscape for threats and searching for ill and injured wildlife. Last year alone, aerial detection averaged 1.98 injured animals per week — including this bull, who had been speared in human-wildlife conflict.

Our seven SWT/KWS Mobile Veterinary Units, operated in partnership with the Kenya Wildlife Service, provide field treatments for animals across Kenya. To date, they have attended more than 4,100 elephant cases — saving thousands of wild lives through their intervention.