Has fully embraced his wild life in Tsavo East National Park
Current age
20 years old
Gender
Male
Rescued date
21 April 2005
Rescue location
Tana River Region, Kora National Park
Date of birth (estimate)
23 September 2004
Reason orphaned
Poaching
Age at rescue
6 months old (approx)
Current location
Living Wild
Imagine being a six month old elephant baby and, although you duplicate a human of that age, because you are an elephant, you are born with the ability to walk – and walk – and walk. But when you do so you are always alongside, or beneath a very loving mother, and at all times surrounded and touched by a very caring and loving elephant family – in other words, a cherished little treasure amongst some very gentle and caring adults.
Imagine being the centre of a tragedy, the likes of which you are unable to understand – your entire family either killed, or running for their lives, dispersed far and wide in every direction, and yourself suffering a deep wound in the right hand jaw, so deep and serious that part of your jawbone breaks away. You find yourself alone, suddenly so alone that there is no-one to care for you. You walk – and walk – and walk, becoming more and more thirsty because the place which was once home to George and Joy Adamson, namely Kora National Park is a semi-desert environment, a stretch of extremely arid and hostile, thorny bush-land in the far Northern Frontier of Kenya.
This is the story of little “Kora”, a calf aged about 6 months, found wandering all alone, with no elephants anywhere near, along a remote road in Kora National Park on Thursday 21st April, the erstwhile home of George Adamson and his famous lions. He was found by Rangers on patrol from Meru National Park, about 50kms from the nearest source of water, extremely emaciated and weak. What damaged his jaw is a mystery. It could have perhaps been the result of a bullet, or possibly a spear injury, but what was evident after his jaw was X-rayed was that a piece of bone has been displaced, with additional fragments around it were causing the deep-seated sepsis that we had to deal with. Fortunately after a couple of weeks of antibiotics and daily cleaning of the wound the large bone chip passed from his mouth along with huge amounts of pus. This was not the end of Kora's troubles as still plenty of small bone fragments remained, but slowly over the months, with daily cleaning, his septic jaw began to heal, and his body slowly absorbed the small bone fragments.
Imagine being a six month old elephant baby and, although you duplicate a human of that age, because you are an elephant, you are born with the ability to walk – and walk – and walk. But when you do so you are always alongside, or beneath a very loving mother, and at all times surrounded and touched by a very caring and loving elephant family – in other words, a cherished little treasure amongst some very gentle and caring adults.
View diary updates from across all our orphan units as written by the Keepers
On Sunday the 10th of July it was time again to move three more naughty Nursery boys, namely Sokotei, Boromoko and Sirimon, to the Ithumba Relocation Unit where they immediately met up with their Nursery friends who had preceded them - Siangiki, Olsekki and Enkikwe who made the journey the month before and who were completely settled and thriving in their new home
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