This is Ambo
And these are Roi and Ndotto
Ah, you must also meet this fella who’s in a awful hurry
These guys are Mbegu, Kauro and Kamok
They, with all the other baby elephants, live at the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust, in Nairobi, Kenya
Such adorable creatures
We have a special thing, you and me
Just look at that
These are the cutest baby elephants you have ever seen
But they have a really important story that more people should hear about
Tens of thousands of elephants are killed each year by poachers, who hunt them for ivory. According to research, up to 100,000 African elephants were killed between 2011 and 2014 alone
Elephant tusks do not grow out properly until they get older, so poachers generally ignore the calves. But once their tusks (which are really modified inscisors in the upper jaw) become noticeable, they become targets for poachers
It’s really grotesque, what these poachers do
As if killing mature elephants for ivory wasn’t bad enough, their deaths mean that the young elephants are left to fend for themselves. Baby elephants need their mother’s milk exclusively for two years, and partially till they are four. If they aren’t rescued, they almost certainly die
Conservation organisations like the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust rescue these orphan elephants and raise them till they are old enough to live independently
Many of them have been re-released into the wild
And re-united with their families
And these guys, the anti-poaching rangers, do everything they can to make sure that poachers don’t get to them
