Day 352- Day Six

Today is day six- and the end of this wonderful interview.  Thank you to Dame Daphne Sheldrick and Laurel Neme of National Geographic!

Daphne Sheldrick with baby elephant Aisha. Photograph courtesy the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust.

Elephant calves are very fragile in early infancy and “can be fine one day and dead the next.” How do you handle loving and caring for an infant and watching it fade? Does it ever get easier? You’ve said, “Elephants have the courage to turn the page and focus on the living.” What have you learned from that?

We draw our emotional stamina from the elephants themselves, who suffer tragedy and heartbreak on an almost daily basis, but who find the courage to turn the page, and focus on the living after grieving just as acutely as us humans, and perhaps even more so.

Whenever we are faced with tragedy and death, after copious tears, one simply has to take one’s cue from the elephants, and we do. There will be others that need your help. It would be very selfish to simply turn them away because one finds it too painful to try to help them. So one has to simply focus on the living, rather than the dead, knowing that the dead are beyond any more suffering and pain, and that one has, at least, afforded them a comfortable end surrounded by compassion and love.

You’ve said, elephants “are just like us but better than us.” How? If we could have three “elephant” qualities, what would they be? For instance, what can elephants teach us (humans) about family, nurturing, and care?

Elephants are much more caring than us humans, even in infancy. All comfort and care for those younger. They have better powers of forgiveness than us humans, despite “never forgetting,” which in elephants happens to be true. They are much more welcoming of strangers. All the orphans instantly embrace and love any newcomer, showing caring and compassion by gently touching them with their trunks, etc.

Tea Time

You describe in your book, Love, Life, and Elephants, how teatime was a special ritual:

Teatime was a fixed routine in our home, much loved by all the orphans because not only did the rattle of teacups indicate that the afternoon walk was imminent but it also meant the appearance of the teatime biscuits I baked, made from a recipe handed down from generation to generation in my family. Most of the orphans viewed these as a treat, particularly Jimmy [a kudu] and [his best friend] Baby [a feisty eland]. Gazing over the verandah ledge with drooling mouths and looks of such longing in their large liquid eyes, they pleaded with every fiber of their being and were impossible to resist, even though feeding them the biscuits was rather like posting letters, so rapidly were they downed. After observing this handout for some time, Shmetty [an orphaned infant elephant] decided she should have one as well. It was hilarious to watch, as she clearly had absolutely no idea what to do with a biscuit, waving it around in her trunk, popping it in and out of her mouth and her ear and finally sucking it up in her trunk until it got blown out in an elephant sneeze, making us all jump.

Could you divulge your biscuit recipe?

Teatime during our Tsavo years was indeed a special ritual. The biscuit recipe is that of my grandmother:

Sheldrick’s Tea Biscuits

½ lb sugar

½ lb margarine or butter

1 lb. flour

1 dessert spoon baking powder

pinch of salt

2 eggs

Cream together sugar and butter, add the eggs, work in the flour, baking powder and salt to a rolling consistency. Roll the dough out. Add either nuts, raisins etc., if wanted, and cut into shapes. Bake in a moderate oven until lightly brown.

Taking Action

Your book details numerous waves of elephant poaching in Tsavo over its history. Again, the Tsavo area faces unprecedented levels of poaching. What needs to be done to reduce poaching? What can the average person do to help?

The poaching in Tsavo today is probably worse than it has ever been. To control it requires a two-pronged approach: radical penalties at this end for poaching perpetrators (perhaps even the death sentence as elephant populations run out); and the international community to shame the consumer countries into curbing their appetite for ivory, plus a very strong effort to rein in the international syndicates of smugglers, who also deal in drugs, etc.

Everyone can do something by raising awareness of the poaching crisis, and by raising funds to help those who are able to make even a small difference at the field level to protect and preserve the elephants. Otherwise, elephants could be extinct in the wild within the next 15 years.

~Laurel Neme

National Geographic

December 6, 2013

Go make a difference!