Elephant Orphanage

Today we visited another one of the sites that our Kilimani students will also go to during their Ecology Excursion field trip - The David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust Elephant Orphanage. We visited during “feeding time” and were able to see all of the orphaned baby elephants and hear their stories. Many were orphaned because of poachers attacking their mothers for ivory tusks. We were able to make important connections with the summer reading book – Safari Journal - that our incoming 4^th grade Henderson students are reading. In the book, an orphaned baby elephant is taken to the Sheldrick Wildlife Trust to be raised and eventually reintroduced to the wild. It will be fun to show our students actual photographs , videos, and tell the elephants’ personal stories when we return to school in September. Thanks to Fund for Teachers, our class will also be able to adopt a baby elephant for the 2010-2011 school year. Here are a few pictures of our day with the elephants. As we posed for one photo, Terri felt a puff of air and heard a little snort as a curious baby poked its trunk right under her skirt. This little one left the trail, slid under the rope, and the ½ ton elephant smiled for the photo above!