Legends & Legacies

Dame Sheldrick, born in Kenya in 1934 to pioneer parents, was raised alongside animals, both wild and domestic. From 1955 until 1976, Sheldrick found herself surrounded by animals again when her husband became warden of Tsavo East National Park, a game reserve in Kenya, which is now the largest National Park in the country. In the early days, much of their efforts beyond expanding and maintaining the park went to fight off armed poachers who were seeking elephant tusks for profit. As a result the Sheldricks were placed in the center of an expanding crisis with the fallout being a growing population of elephant orphans. Tsavo soon became the epicenter for rehabilitating and protecting elephants in Kenya.

During her years with David at Tsavo National Park, they were unable to successfully raise an orphan younger than one year because they couldn’t find the exact formula that matched an elephant mother’s milk. “We’ve learned over the years and lots and lots have died and with every one that dies we do postmortems.”

After twenty years at Tsavo East National Park, the couple finally discovered the right mixture that could keep a baby elephant alive and in fact, says Sheldrick, help it grow and thrive *. It was a combination of human baby formula and coconut milk, which helped keep a three-week old orphan elephant named Aisha alive. Tragically, Aisha died of grief months later when Sheldrick left her with an assistant to travel to Nairobi for her daughter’s wedding preparations. Then six-months old, Aisha thought she’d lost another mother when Sheldrick left temporarily, and stopped eating.

“Elephants are very human animals, emotionally. They are in some ways better than us,” says Sheldrick. “I always say it takes two years to make an elephant in the womb and nine years to make a man. That puts it all into perspective.”

Sheldrick said she learned a vital lesson in those early years, particularly with Aisha. Elephant families, she explains, are highly sensitive. Young elephants are raised in matriarchal groups with a doting mother, sisters, cousins and grandmothers – these bonds lasts a lifetime. Sheldrick says she grew to understand that in the orphanage she mustn’t let an elephant become too attached to one person. This is why the “keepers” at the orphanage rotate shifts with each elephant.

When David died suddenly of a heart attack in 1977, Dame Sheldrick carried out his legacy by founding the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust # and the David Sheldrick Elephant Orphanage in Nairobi National Park. Here, she still lives and works with her daughters Angela and Jill to try to rescue orphaned elephants whose mothers have been savagely killed.

To date, the David Sheldrick Elephant Orphanage has rescued over 180 infant African elephants whose mothers have been killed by poaching, war and disease with their personally-perfected infant milk formula. In 2006, Queen Elizabeth appointed Sheldrick a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire for this accomplishment. It was the first knighthood to be awarded in Kenya since the country received Independence in 1963.

* During her time at Tsavo, she raised and rehabilitated back into the wild community orphans of misfortune from many different wild species, including elephants, black rhinos, buffalo, zebras, elands, kudus, impalas, duikers, reedbuck, dikdiks, warthogs, civets, mongooses and birds.[citation needed] She was a recognized authority on the rearing of wild creatures and was the first person to perfect the milk formula and necessary husbandry for both infant milk-dependent elephants and rhinos. When she first made attempts to keep the orphaned babies of elephants alive, often at one or two years old, with other milk sources, they remained malnourished and faded into death. It was only after trying every combination she could find that she hit on one baby milk formula from Europe, which contained coconut oil, that seemed to work.

# Embracing the conservation, preservation and protection of wildlife in Kenya, the DSWT today operates the most successful orphan-elephant rescue and rehabilitation programme in the world alongside Anti-Poaching Teams, Mobile Veterinary Units and Aerial Surveillance and a Sky Vet initiative in partnership with the Kenya Wildlife Service. Other projects which aim to safeguard the natural environment and enhance community awareness include Saving Habitats and Community Outreach projects.

Courtesy: Kristan Schiller, RedFlag magazine and Wikipedia

ABOUT THE DAVID SHELDRICK WILDLIFE TRUST (DSWT)

Born from one family’s passion for Kenya and its wilderness, the Sheldrick Wildlife Trust is one of the pioneering conservation organisations for wildlife and habitat protection in East Africa.

The Sheldrick Wildlife Trust is best known for our work with elephants, operating the most successful orphan elephant rescue and rehabilitation program in the world. While the Orphans’ Project is the heart of the organisation, it cannot exist in isolation and over the last 40 years the Sheldrick Wildlife Trust has developed an extensive, multi-faceted approach to conservation to ensure a greater and long-lasting impact for wildlife.

Through our Aerial, Anti-Poaching and Mobile Veterinary Units, we are actively safeguarding the natural environment and providing immediate assistance to wild animals in need. Our renowned Orphans’ Project allows us to respond to and rescue orphaned baby elephants, rhinos and other wild species across Kenya, so that they might enjoy a life back in the wild when grown.

Community Outreach engages us with local people living alongside wildlife, while our Saving Habitat initiative is focused on securing irreplaceable wilderness areas so that animals will always have space to roam.

Working alongside the Kenya Wildlife Service, the Kenya Forest Service and local communities our multifaceted approach to conservation is underpinned by our collaboration with local communities bordering Kenya’s National Parks. Working alongside Kenya’s local people is paramount in securing a safe and bright future for both wildlife, humans and reducing human-wildlife conflict.

Founded in 1977 by Dr Dame Daphne Sheldrick DBE, in memory of her late husband, famous naturalist and founding Warden of Tsavo East National Park, David Leslie William Sheldrick MBE, the Sheldrick Wildlife Trust claims a rich and deeply rooted family history in wildlife and conservation.

In 1948, David Sheldrick began his renowned career within the Royal National Parks of Kenya, where he worked unwaveringly for over two decades transforming Tsavo, a previously unchartered and inhospitable land, into Kenya’s largest and most famous National Park. David Sheldrick stands out, even today, as one of Africa’s most famous and proficient pioneer National Park Wardens.

For over 25 years Kenya-born Daphne Sheldrick lived and worked alongside David, during which time they raised and successfully rehabilitated many wild species.

Daphne Sheldrick’s involvement with wildlife spanned a lifetime, and she was a recognised international authority on the rearing of wild creatures and was the first person to perfect the milk formula and husbandry needed to successfully raise infant milk-dependent Elephants and Rhinos.

Since the death of her husband, Daphne, and her family, lived and worked in the Nairobi National Park where they built The David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust and its pioneering Orphans’ Project into the global force for wildlife conservation that is today. Daphne's daughter Angela worked alongside her mother running the Trust for twenty years, and since Daphne’s passing in 2018 continues the mission with passion and vigor ably supported by her husband Robert Carr-Hartley, their two sons Taru and Roan and the Sheldrick Wildlife Trust team. ​​​​​

As the human population expands, pushing wildlife to the very brink of extinction and wild habitats to the edge of destruction, the Sheldrick Trust is determined to reverse the effects of the past and prevent the effects of the present, in the hope for a better future for both wildlife and mankind.

Source: The Sheldrick Wildlife Trust

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David Sheldrick MBE (23 November 1919 - 13 June 1977)

David Sheldrick stands out, even today, as one of Africa's most famous and proficient pioneer National Park wardens of all time. With just one lorry, and a handful of labourers, he was given the task of transforming a huge chunk of inhospitable arid land, previously uncharted and known only as the Taru desert, into what today is Kenya's largest and most famous National Park - Tsavo.

The Park was established by Act of Parliament in 1948 and David Sheldrick was the first Warden of the Eastern Sector, an area of just over 5,000 square miles, equal in size to Michigan State, Israel or Wales, a post he held until he was transferred to head the Planning Unit for all Kenya's Wildlife Areas at the end of 1976. David died 6 months later, but the legacy he left endures. His character is summed up by Tim Corfield, in the Author's Note to the Field Manual David's Notes and Records inspired - "The Wilderness Guardian" which is now a Text Book throughout Africa in most Wildlife Institutions and Training Schools, and an integral part of every Field Warden's library.

"How can I adequately portray this remarkable man and his achievements? The strong, handsome, weather-beaten face, the hard blue eyes, the powerful frame and large competent hands; the courteous manners, keen sense of humour and clear perceptive mind; his quietness, willpower and endurance, his deep underlying compassion and above all his integrity. To say that he is the finest man I have ever met is inadequate, for what is my experience as a yardstick. I can assert that he was a truly great man; but such a cliché; sheer over-use has blunted the impact of so many powerful words and descriptions. I state simply, then, that in Tsavo National Park a man of quite exceptional stature imposed his will on men and machinery to preserve one of the world's great wildernesses, and thereby set a pattern of development for Kenya's National Parks that was to be the envy of the world. In a tragedy I outline below, this task killed David Sheldrick, but in his death he provided for us immeasurably, both in the systems he left behind, and also in the example of his fight to create a real wilderness sanctuary - not a glorified game ranch, not a Zoo Park, not a scientific experiment nor playground, but an area where wilderness could simply be. Central to his efforts was a belief that wildlife and wilderness were not to be guarded simply for their own sake, but they were a well-spring for our spiritual refreshment - yours and mine and that of future generations.

The Headquarters of Tsavo East under David Sheldrick was an extraordinary world of organisation and discipline. Uniformed Rangers on guard, others setting out on patrol; men in blue overalls tending huge tractors and earth moving machinery, lorries, trucks and trailers lined up for duty; everywhere the drone of machinery and the flash of arc welders as people bustled to and fro in purposeful activity. Then, within a few yards of the Headquarters perimeter, all this was left behind cleanly, and you moved into a contrasting world of thorn-bush and trees, hard horizons and red earth, elephant, gazelle, game trails, birds and birdsong, whisper of grass and rasp of insects - that stirring entanglement of life and space that is an African wilderness. Especially space, huge unfettered space; a vast openness that circles the horizon and arcs across brazen skies; an openness the cloistered townsman cannot comprehend, but which moves him, maybe even frightens him a little, whose timelessness exhilarates. Here the animals are left to live out their lives with the minimum of interference, as they have since time immemorial. Men and machines hold so much potential for domination and destruction, but David Sheldrick willed them the servants of this wilderness.

If you mentioned the word "development" to him, in the context of National Parks, a guarded look would come into his eyes for he was conscious always that the effects of development so easily become a spreading cancer of concrete, steel and squalor; an agglomeration of more and more machines and facilities for more and more people. National Parks he saw as areas offering escape from precisely these things. To properly guard a wilderness a man must have command of an exceptional range of special skills. To quote David himself:

"A National Park Warden is required to carry out many and varied duties. Firstly he must have administrative ability for he will be in charge of a large staff responsible for the development and maintenance of roads, buildings, dams, boreholes, firebreaks, airfields, water supplies etc. He will be responsible for the training and welfare of an armed Ranger Force. In order to do this successfully he must first understand the meaning of discipline - to take orders and give orders in such a manner that they are obeyed. At the same time he must not ask those under him to perform tasks that he would not be prepared to do himself. He must have an understanding of ecology, be capable of reading and drawing up maps and plans, working out costs and preparing realistic estimates, be able to fly an aircraft, have a basic knowledge of the Law, be familiar with the habits of wild animals, and conversant with the use of firearms, for it may be necessary for him to destroy wounded or dangerous animals. He must be able to do this cleanly and without emotion. He should be an ambassador of National Parks at all times and show initiative and resourcefulness greater than that called for in most professions. Above all, he should be absolutely dedicated and of the utmost integrity" David Sheldrick had all these skills, and more.

He had spent time - snatches of it and long unbroken stretches in the quiet company of wild animals and he had learnt to observe and study them with sympathy and understanding, not in the superior and arrogant manner of the Scientists chalking up knowledge, but with the humility and empathy of a born naturalist. His alert and enquiring mind was finely tuned to the complexities of Nature, and the time he spent quietly absorbing her ways engendered strong convictions and a deep underlying confidence in her. This, as much as anything else, fuelled his dogged defence of a natural solution to Tsavo's much publicised "elephant problem" (in the early seventies). There were expedient options open to him which would have appeased the critics of his policies, but David Sheldrick knew that to take these would be an abrogation of his duty both as a Warden and a man. His resolve, then, to protect the wilderness was absolute, and he turned resolutely away from embarking on any precedent that could prove dangerous or lead to abuse, thereby jeopardising the sanctity of the Park he had created and loved so completely.

David's illustrious career with the Royal National Parks of Kenya was honoured in the 1962 Queen's Birthday Honours when he was awarded an MBE. His name is also immortalised in the World Wildlife Funds Roll of Honour. Posted to Nairobi at the end of 1976, he went bravely, and such is the mark of the man that he also went without bitterness, and he launched into his new duties with characteristic vigour. But Tsavo was still there, her wild spaces crying for protection. The home territory needed him as never before, her animals suffering an onslaught of killing and cruelty unprecedented in all her written history (under the new totally Government controlled Wildlife Conservation & Management Department.) As Tsavo had set a mark on his soul, so his life without it was exile. As David once laughingly remarked, "You can cut an old tree down, but you can't transplant it". His good natured humour never left him, but in that remark lay the truth. The old soldier simply could not turn his back and leave. He died on the 13th June 1977 from a massive heart attack.

His wife, Daphne, was beside him when he died, as she had been throughout their married life. Her love and loyalty and her own steadfast qualities gave him strength and purpose when times were dark, and brought fun and laughter into their home. Her garden was an oasis of gentleness and peace in a harsh environment, a place where wild animals could come and go, always welcome, always free. There could be no consolation for her loss, but from David's example there came strength and resolve to continue the purpose of his life. The David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust was created in his memory, and as its Chairman, Daphne has been guiding its conservation activities ever since."

David Sheldrick was born in Egypt on 23rd November 1919, under the sound of gunfire during the First World War when his father was serving with the British Remounts. Both David's parents were born in British India, his father an English Coffee Planter in the Nilgiri Hills and his mother an English lady of noble birth raised on one of the famous Houseboats in Kashmir. Born in Egypt, christened in the Seychelles, David first came to Kenya as a babe in arms, when at the end of the First World War his father came to Kenya as part of the British Government's Soldier Settlement Scheme. He bought and took possession of a virgin piece of Africa which he developed into a thriving Coffee Estate near Mweiga, which became one of the models of its time. The famous Treetops Hotel, where Princess Elizabeth became Queen in 1952 was on the Sheldrick's Mweiga Estate and was originally built by David's father.

An only child, David's very English parents wanted the best for their son, and were prepared to make tough sacrifices in order to achieve this. These were the years of the great post-war depression of the 30's, before the age of commercial air travel. David was sent to England for his schooling aged six, first to a Preparatory School and thereafter to the prestigious Canford School. For the next 11 years he grew up in England, spending holidays on a Scottish Estate whose owner took in Colonial boys. David did not see his parents again until he returned home having left school aged 17. When he eventually came back to Kenya as a young man, he walked straight past his mother on the Station without knowing who she was. During his school career he excelled both in sports and academically, but especially in practical skills such as woodwork. He boxed for both his schools throughout his school career and remained unbeaten. He was a skilled marksman, an outstanding horseman, excelling on the Polo Ground. In fact, David excelled in everything he undertook.

Having returned to Kenya, he worked on a highland farm on the Kinangop until the outbreak of the Second World War when he underwent the Officers Training Course at Nakuru before being drafted to The King's African Rifles, seeing active service in both Abyssinnia and Burma. David was quickly promoted to Major, the youngest officer in the K.A.R. to achieve this rank and given his own command of a battalion - the 5th Kings African Rifles. At the end of the War he was amongst those chosen to represent Kenya at the Victory Parade in London.

Thereafter he joined the first Tented Safari Company to be established in Kenya - the famous Safariland and was actually in Tanzania escorting the then Aga Khan on safari when the Kenya National Parks appointments were first advertised in 1948. The then famous Game Warden, Archie Ritchie urged the Director of National Parks, Colonel Mervyn Cowie, to keep a Post open for David Sheldrick who was already a very well-known personality in the Colony. On return from the Aga Khan Safari David applied and was accepted and in April 1948 became the founder Warden of Kenya's largest and most important National Park - Tsavo. He was 28 years old at the time.

David's career with National Parks was equally as illustrious. For two years he walked the Park on foot following the elephant trails, only to find that poaching was already a very serious threat. A combined force of Game Department and National Parks personnel plus the Police was established under David's command, and all work was halted for the next three years whilst this problem was tackled and satisfactorily resolved.

David was ahead of his time. Way back in the early fifties, he was the first person to initiate a comprehensive collection of all the food plants of Elephants, long before any Scientist had even thought of studying elephants. Each plant was analysed for mineral content and nutritional value. He was the first to study the movement pattern of the elephant herds, and was able to counter the scientific theory that the Tsavo population comprised 10 discrete populations rather than just one.

He was the first person to rescue and hand-rear orphaned elephants, (but was successful only with those over two years of age). Many other orphans of misfortune were taken in, nurtured and set free when grown, including Black Rhinos, and most antelope species. David always insisted that any wild animal orphan was only on loan for its dependent years, but that ultimately it must go free. Through the rearing of the orphans David Sheldrick gained an in-depth understanding of the animal psyche and his knowledge of the fauna, the flora, the birds and the insects of his Park was unparalleled at the time. In his small private laboratory he conducted many experiments to fuel his quest for knowledge and gain an understanding of the intricacies of Nature.

An in-depth study of all archival material relating to the habitat of Tsavo as it was when the railroad from Mombasa to Nairobi was installed at the turn of the century was undertaken and masterminded by him; long hours spent perusing the descriptions of people such as Patterson, Krapf, Lugard, Meinetzhagen, Rebmann and Carl Peters. All anecdotes relevant to the Tsavo area were compiled into one Volume in order to gain an overview of what the vegetation of the area must have been like a century ago and an understanding of the natural processes of plant succession he was already beginning to observe taking place. He traced the root systems of the main tree species of Tsavo, carefully exposing and photographing them and comparing them to the root systems of the perennial grasses that were beginning to become established as the elephants modified the habitat from Commiphora woodland to grassland.

Using the orphaned elephants, he undertook experiments to determine the nature of an elephant's digestive tract - how long an orange took to pass through an elephant's gut and appear in the stools during the course of a day, weighing the dung against an estimate of fodder intake and analysing the protein content of the dung. He was the first to understand how Nature has made the elephant the most fragile through its inefficient digestive system, passing 6% protein in the dung.

He undertook a study of the small rodents and frogs of Tsavo, compiled a checklist of the birds and snakes and created a Herbarium over a five year period with every plant photographed in situ and in flower and thereafter pressed. One specimen of each now rests in Kew Gardens in London, another in the Herbarium in Nairobi and a third stored at the Research Centre in Voi. David has a small tree frog and a red mite named for him. He was the first person in the world to discover the presence of what is now known as Sheldrick Falls in the Shimba Hills forest - something that not even the locals new existed.

He made a study of the parasites specific to Black Rhino; the Rhinomusca flies that breed in the middens, the Filarial parasites responsible for the shoulder lesions often seen in Rhino, and other parasites specific to these ancient animals such as the Gyrostrigma fly. He was the first person ever to hatch one of these flies from a bot taken from the dung of one of our orphaned rhinos.

When David Sheldrick first came to Tsavo, not one road or building existed. 28 years later he left a Park fully developed with an infrastructure that was unmatched anywhere in East Africa - 1,087 kms of tourist all weather roads, 853 kms. of administrative roads and 287 kms of anti-poaching tracks in the North, a Headquarters and Workshop to be proud of. With just a few labourers, he constructed the extensive concrete causeway across the Galana River, which has provided access to the remote Northern area of the Park for the past 60 years. The entire infrastructure of Tsavo East National Park, as it is today, owes its existence to him; five Park Entrance Gates, the first Self Catering Lodge at Aruba which was once so popular and so lovely; the vast man-made lake that served the wild residents in terms of permanent water for the next 60 years, even the spectacular position of the Voi Safari Lodge affording breath-taking views over that immense land. He installed boreholes, and Windmills to quench the thirst of Tsavo's vast elephant herds, spreading the load and relieving congestion on the only two permanent rivers. More importantly, he left the blue print that has been the role model for today's paramilitary Field Force Rangers geared to combating the armed incursion of bandit poachers.

And in his Handing Over Notes David Sheldrick had this to say about the then Orphans Project which was already in existence in Tsavo:

"Tsavo East has become internationally famous for its wildlife rehabilitation programme. Over the years many elephant, rhino, buffalo, lesser kudu, impala, eland, warthog, duiker, dikdik, zebra and other animals have been successfully rehabilitated after having been raised in captivity. Much extremely valuable information has been obtained retarding gestation, estrous cycles, growth rates, food preferences, ailments, social structure and general behaviour of these animals under circumstances that are quite unique. Their relationship with man has also given confidence to the wild animals living near the Headquarters, thus providing further opportunities for observation, and given untold pleasure to hundreds of visitors. It is important that the present relationship between man, hand-reared and wild animals should not be disrupted, for it has taken many years to achieve these results and a situation is developing whereby further information, unobtainable elsewhere and of the greatest importance is possible. The female elephant "Eleanor" is now 18 years old, and therefore reached an age when she is ready to breed. As she regularly mixes with the wild elephant, it is anticipated that she will be covered very shortly, probably during the coming rains. The birth of an African Elephant under the conditions that currently exist in Tsavo East would be sensational to say the least, but what is more important, it would present an opportunity to obtain very valuable data; the composition of elephant's milk during the different stages of lactation, growth rates, weight increase, tooth eruption etc. etc."

David Sheldrick was spared having to witness the plunder of his Park in the late seventies, eighties and early nineties which reduced its great elephant herds from 20,000 to a mere 6,000. But one thing we do know and that is today he would have been proud of The David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust, established in his memory, which has hand-reared for the first time ever, over 33 infant orphaned African Elephants most of whom are now growing up happily in Tsavo. Many other wild creatures have also been nurtured and ultimately returned where they rightly belong and some of our hand-reared elephants and rhinos have, indeed, given birth to wild born young and contributed greatly to our knowledge. However David Sheldrick might have viewed the events that have taken place in Tsavo since his departure, we know that at least that to which he gave maximum priority is still intact - the pristine wilderness and the quality of life its inmates still enjoy. He would look down proudly on the results of the stand he made over the elephant issue, and approved of how the elephants have transformed sterile arid scrubland into a mosaic of rich habitats harbouring a greater biodiversity than ever before. And he would most certainly have approved of the record of the Trust that so proudly carries his name and strives so tirelessly to follow the guidelines he established in life perpetuating his unbending integrity and ideals, still acting as a custodian of "right" in Tsavo, still working to protect and nurture that great wilderness that David loved so well in life and doing so bravely without fear or favour, just as he would have wished.

Source: The Sheldrick Wildlife Trust

Angela Sheldrick

Angela heads The David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust and all its operations in Kenya and has done since 2001. Daughter of David and Daphne Sheldrick, Angela was brought up in the wilds of Tsavo East where her famous naturalist father David Sheldrick MBE was the founding warden. She has been exposed to Kenya’s wildlife and wild places all her life.

She was educated first in Kenya and then later in South Africa, studying at the Michaelis School of Fine Art at the University of Cape Town. She later worked for a year on the film ‘Out of Africa’, assistant to the dress designer Milena Canonero, which led to a career in the film industry for the next decade, based out of Cape Town and working around the world.

In 1996 Angela married Robert Carr-Hartley, like herself, a fourth generation Kenyan, who owns a successful bespoke Safari Company, and has known a similarly unique childhood growing up amidst Kenya’s wildlife and wild places.

She returned to live permanently in Kenya, and later took the helm of The David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust in 2001, and together with Robert by her side has run the Trust ever since. Angela and Robert designed the very successful digital fostering program in 2001, the first of its kind at the time.

Robert and Angela have two sons, Taru born in 1998 and Roan born in 2000, both of whom have a passion and commitment to wildlife and conservation.

Source: The Sheldrick Wildlife Trust

HONOURS

For her work in this field, Sheldrick was awarded an MBE by Queen Elizabeth II in the 1989 Birthday Honours, and separately elevated to UNEP's Global 500 Roll of Honour in 1992, where she was among the first 500 people worldwide to have been accorded this particular honour. Sheldrick was also awarded an Honorary Doctorate in Veterinary Medicine and Surgery by Glasgow University in June 2000. In December 2001 her work was honoured by the Kenyan Government through the prestigious Moran of the Order of the Burning Spear (MBS) decoration. In 2002, the BBC recognized Sheldrick with their Lifetime Achievement Award. In the November 2005 issue of the Smithsonian magazine, Daphne Sheldrick was named as one of 35 people worldwide who have made a difference in terms of animal husbandry and wildlife conservation. Queen Elizabeth II promoted Daphne Sheldrick a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire in the 2006 New Year’s Honours List, "[f]or services to the conservation of wildlife, especially elephants, and to the local community in Kenya", the first damehood to be awarded in Kenya since the country received Independence in 1963.

Source: Wikipedia

PUBLICATIONS & MOVIES

The Orphans of Tsavo by Daphne Sheldrick - 1966

Animal Kingdom: The Story of Tsavo, the Great African Game Park by Daphne Sheldrick - ISBN: 0672519844 and ISBN13: 9780672519840

My Four-footed Family by Daphne Sheldrick - ISBN: 0460068628 and ISBN13: 9780460068628

The Tsavo Story by Daphne Sheldrick - 1973 ISBN 0002628015

An Elephant Called Eleanor by Daphne Sheldrick - 1980 ISBN: 0460069004

Love, Life, and Elephants: An African Love Story 2012 by Daphne Sheldrick ISBN 9781429942713

Sheldrick appeared as herself in the 2011 documentary Born to Be Wild.

She also had an appearance talking about an orphan elephant, which she took care of, which aired on PBS on the show "My Wild Affair".

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ARTICLES OF INTEREST

The woman who fosters elephants in Kenya By Jessamy Calkin with The Telegraph

Daphne Sheldrick, who created an elephant orphanage in Kenya, dies at 83 By Harrison Smith April 15, 2018 with The Washington Post

The orphan elephant calves rescued in Kenya from slaughter by poachers - January 2009 by Gossip Rocks

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A message from Dame Daphne Sheldrick:

‘I know elephants intimately having reared their orphaned young over a lifetime. I have witnessed their suffering and their grieving for lost loved ones, and I have often been ashamed to be a member of the human race in view of how they have been treated at the hands of humans. Noble, powerful, yet inherently gentle elephants are emotionally identical to us, but so much better than us in many ways. Endowed with a mysterious intuition, slow to anger, they never forget, and yet find forgiveness despite the unjust and evil cruelty inflicted on them. Today elephants are dying in droves on a daily basis, to feed the infamous and evil ivory trade fuelled by the demand from the East. Killing such a magnificent animal simply for its ivory epitomises all that is evil. It is outrageous, cruel and wrong and cannot be allowed to continue. It is time for all caring people in the world to make a difference by speaking out loud and clear against this inhuman practice that is driving elephants as a species to extinction - Your voice can be heard.’

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