KENYA: The video is an inspiration for conservationists. It does seem ironic, however, that on the other side of the coin elephants are being slaughtered in Africa’s reserves for their ivory. Two competing interests. Which one trumps the other? You know the answer as well as I do: it’s the elephant killers who win out because their activities are motivated by money and on this primarily capitalist planet money is a much stronger driving force than conservation which is why the world is losing thousands of species. This era is described as the sixth mass extinction.
The elephants
It is thought that the mother and her calf got stuck in the mud when they were looking for water. There is a drought in the area which I guess is why water turned to mud.
The mother’s weight meant that she sank into the mud and couldn’t move. Her calf joined her because of the incredibly close bond between mother and offspring and became stuck themselves.
Members of The Sheldrick Wildlife Trust, in a great team effort and using all the means at their disposal including tranquilizers, managed to free both calf and mother.
They initially released the calf but he went back to his mother and became stuck again. They had to release him again. When they did so they tranquilized him to stop him going back to his mother.
After they’d tranquillised the mother, they managed to release her from the mud using an armada of vehicles 💓. The next step was to give them both an antidote to the tranquilliser whereupon they were free to trundle off to find water. That I am sure is another major problem in the area and the drought is probably down to global warming.
I found the video compelling and couldn’t stop watching it. The elephants were stuck for two days.
The Sheldrick Wildlife Trust is based in Kenya and they operate one of the nation’s largest orphaned elephant rescue and wildlife rehabilitation programs.
