VISITING AN ELEPHANT SANCTUARY IN KENYA
Visiting and supporting an Elephant sanctuary in Kenya is part of our programme INAUDIBLE VOICES dedicated to protecting endangered species. Few members of our team went to Kenya in order to take concrete actions on the ground.
Mission :
Retiti was founded by local communities in 2016, who were aware of the importance to protect wild fauna, among which the elephant, one of the most emblematic species. The sanctuary was created in response to the local community requests, who recognize the wild fauna as an opportunity to improve their livelihood.
Their mission is to save baby elephants, giraffes, and other endemic species which are abandoned or separated from their family, or whose parents are unfortunately killed. These babies are thus alone and it becomes very complicated for them to survive on their own before the age of 4.
Their philosophy is to take care, feed the baby elephants and other species until they are ready to be autonomous and go back into nature. In doing so, the idea is not to make them accustomed to human presence. Retiti guardians are the only ones who can approach them. The animals released in nature are tracked with GPS in order to be sure that their readaptation to wild life goes well. For this purpose, they work with partners like Sarara, managed by one of the refuge founders.
The animals are fed 4 times a day on a regular and at fixed hours, the first service being at 9 am. The baby elephants are also fed 4 times at night; the baby giraffes do not need it.
Retiti knows that a baby elephant is ready to be autonomous when it adopts a more indépendant behavior and refuses to come and drink the offered milk. This happens when they are around 4. The transition is done step by step : the baby elephant is first brought far from the sanctuary and accompanied by rangers, then those leave and observe its behavior. If it seems hesitant and wishes to follow them, it is not ready yet. On the contrary, if it seems at ease; it is officially weaned and the GPS tracking can start.
Results :
Dozens of elephants have been taken care of by the refuge since its creation. 5 elephants have been released, one of which succeeded in finding its family back in nature. Between 5 and 10 elephants are saved in the north of Kenya each year, out of an estimated population of 8700.
What’s next ?
The idea is to be able to continue their action and keep sensitizing the local community, even if they are already very committed in the refuge management. They also wish to improve the tracking system to stay ahead on the technology level and counteract poaching even more.
Our impression :
Their action seems impactful and their in-house organization seems efficient. However, when we arrived, they did not know that we were partners, although we communicated over a year with one of the founders… This partnership can continue if we hear from them more often (it seems that we have been added to their newsletter list, we’re still waiting for the first email). The idea will be to have a main contact in order to have a better follow-up, Sabine seems to be the main contact while keeping Katia in the loop. We advise to continue and deepen the partnership with MEP, if we obviously do have a more regular follow-up on their actions by the next donation.
