Imenti's Story

Imenti was born on the 19th January 1994 near the Imenti Forest in Meru. He was only hours old upon arrival in Nairobi, and was named after the forest that still harbours what remains of his beleaguered herd, entirely surrounded by cultivation and cut off from their traditional migratory route to Mount Kenya. He was still covered in the foetal membranes on arrival, born as his mother died in a hail of gunfire, so is the youngest wild born elephant ever to have been successfully hand reared. Deprived of his mother's first colostrum to stimulate a new baby's immune system, he was a very fragile infant. Normally such calves never survive more than a few weeks, but in this case an infusion of plasma drawn from the blood of one of the older orphans saved the day.