The empress of elephant orphans dies
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Dame Daphne Sheldrick, known as the empress of elephant orphans, died peacefully at her home in Nairobi, Kenya, last month at the age of 83.
Sheldrick founded the Sheldrick Elephant Orphanage in Nairobi over 50 years ago. She and her family have helped save hundreds of elephants and other animals, rehabilitating them and returning them to the wild.
"She was not only an extraordinary woman, but my best friend and my mentor and one of her greatest comforts was knowing that her work would continue," said Angela Sheldrick, Daphne's daughter. "I have two sons so the next gen are coming through as well."
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Angela Sheldrick has been running the orphanage for 15 years now. She said the orphanage is so important as a safe haven for wild animals and elephants orphaned after their parents are killed by drought, disease, and most commonly, by poachers, who slaughter them for their tusks and the ivory trade, which is decimating elephant populations across Africa at catastrophic rates. It's estimated that an elephant is killed every 15 minutes.
"That's 96 elephants a day," said Rob Bandford, executive director of the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust. "It's estimated there are no more than 400,000 elephants left in Africa. With statistics like that, if something doesn't change rapidly, then the species will be gone easily within our lifetime, within the next 20 years."
Without their families, orphan elephants die. Bandford said each elephant rescue story is unique and often harrowing, and each story starts with a local hero, an everyday citizen who decided to do something amazing for an elephant.
"We've never really told the story of the unsung heroes at the beginning of these rescues," said Angela Sheldrick. "The Kenyan, the simple men and women out there who go to extraordinary lengths, sometimes life-threatening lengths, to save that orphaned elephant."
To celebrate and thank those people who put their own lives in danger to save elephants, the Sheldrick Foundation has launched Dame Daphne Sheldrick's final book, "Unsung Heroes," which tells stories of bravery, kindness and heroism.
Angela Sheldrick said her mother is still much loved by the elephants she saved — the morning after her mother died, the elephants in the Sheldrick nursery did something amazing.
"My mother died in the evening, and the following day we had some VIPs visiting and I was down with them. And as I came to the spot, it was out in the park, the whole nursery herd started walking towards me, led by Mbegu, who is our wonderful matriarch here, she came as a tiny infant herself and she's kind of a mini-mom. She walked all 29 of them up past me, brushing past me," described Angela Sheldrick. "That doesn't happen every single day. The fact that all of them came to me immediately. Elephants read your hearts, so I don't know so much if it was knowing Daphne passed away, but they could feel my grief."
Sheldrick said her mother's ashes are scheduled to be scattered around Tsavo National Park this summer.
To find more about the Sheldrick orphanage and the book "Unsung Heroes" — as well as how to adopt your own elephant go to A Beautiful World.