Quality Keepers
How many keepers does DSWT have?
We have about 58 trained elephant keepers.
Keepers do far more than tend to the elephants; they serve as ambassadors and share stories too. How do they share information?
The keepers write the Keeper’s Diary, which records everything interesting that happens on a daily basis. That way they learn about elephants and disseminate that information to their friends and family. The public viewing at the nursery is another way of passing on information, but the monthly Keeper’s Diaries inform the global public, because they are posted on our website monthly.
What is the training for a keeper?
The training is simply being taught how to handle the calves, how to mix the milk, how to recognize anything unusual in the stools, or the appetite, and simply common sense and powers of observation, at which some are better than others, and some more caring than others.
Those more caring are most loved by the elephants. One can tell who is a good keeper simply by observing how the orphans respond to them.
While each keeper is special, who have been some of the most gifted? For instance, tell me about Mischak Nzimbi? What are their stories? What are the special talents and qualities of a keeper?
Elephants can read one’s heart. Those keepers who genuinely love their charges are special, such as Head Keepers Edwin Lusichi at the Nursery, Joseph Sauni down at the Voi Rehab Station, and especially Banjamin up at the Ithumba Rehab Centre. Mishak also has a special empathy, which is recognized by the elephants he handles. Some keepers regard their work with the elephants just as a job and a way of earning money; others genuinely care for and love the elephants. As I said before, with elephants one reaps what one sows.
Emotional Connection
What have been the most powerful examples of memory in elephants that you’ve seen? In your book you talked about Eleanor greeting her ex-keeper, despite not having seen him for 37 years.
Eleanor greeting her keeper after such a long period of time was a powerful example of elephant memory. The orphans will even recognize people they have known fleetingly in the nursery, selecting those who have cared most for them, and paid them the most attention. The orphans also recognize one another after separation when some are upgraded, and others left behind in the nursery.
I understand that elephants who are raised in the nursery and now live in the wild will bring back their own calves to “meet” their human family. Does this always happen?
Certainly all the nursery-reared orphans, who understand the origin of the calves that are relocated to the rehabilitation centers, have brought their wild-born babies to share with the keepers, who remain based at the rehabilitation centers.
Those who have been reared at the rehabilitation centers, and who never experienced the nursery, do not, because they suspect that we might have “snatched” the calves from the rightful mothers, as elephants from disrupted populations are prone to doing.
You’ve said, “When you raise an animal, you learn the inside story of that animal.” Who are some of the animals that have touched you the most? Who did you most connect with on a spiritual level?
When one has a human child, whom you see every day and raise from the moment it is born, one knows the “inside story,” that is, the mind of that child. It is the same with orphaned animals. Rearing the orphans one learns far more about them than any casual observer will ever know, because one learns how they feel and how they think.
The stories of some of the orphans who have touched my heart are recorded in my books. I love all the orphans, but the antelope orphans are some of the very special ones that I have been privileged to know intimately and have found fascinating and wonderful.
All animals are that, but the elephants are the most human emotionally. They are just like us but better than us.
~Laurel Neme
National Geographic
December 6, 2013
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