Vulnerable to extinction, African elephants play a crucial role in ecological balance, shaping landscapes by trampling dense grasslands enabling smaller species to co-exist, and supporting other wildlife by digging water holes in low rainfall. Drought, poaching, and human-wildlife conflict have increased the number of abandoned elephant orphans struggling to survive. Working with our local project partner, Elephant Havens, your support can help give these babies a fighting chance in life.
Elephants are communal animals. Due to their social nature, baby elephants orphaned in the wild simply cannot survive. They need constant maternal care and companionship of other elephants to maintain emotional well-being and learn the ways of being an elephant. An estimated 100 African elephants are killed daily by poachers seeking ivory, meat and body parts, leaving behind traumatised elephant orphans. Just 400,000 African elephants remain on the continent, compared to 10 million in the 1930s.
We're working with local grassroots partner Elephant Havens to ensure high-quality care to abandoned and orphaned elephants. The elephant handler team work around the clock providing constant care, feeding the young elephants special milk formula every three hours when they're small. As the elephants grow within a protected area, they're slowly introduced to grasses and other plants that will be their natural diet. Living as part of a new herd, they're gradually rewilded over a 10-year period.
Funds help: Protect and rear orphaned elephants ensuring each grows to maturity, increasing African elephant survival rates. Community engagement enhances human-elephant co-existence and conservation. The provision of 1000 acres of protected land away from human encroachment, creates a soft release site enabling young elephants to live independently before being fully rewilded. Education outreach helps build local conservation understanding, instilling responsibility for protecting wildlife.
This project has provided additional documentation in a PDF file (projdoc.pdf).
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