David Sheldrick Elephant Orphanage Day Tour

This is orphan-elephant rescue and rehabilitation center. It is a part of the David Sheldrick Conservation Foundation. Established in 1977, after the death of David Sheldrick, an antipoaching warden of Tsavo National Park. With his wife Daphne, they pioneered methods of nurturing orphaned black rhinos and elephants, and later reintroducing them into the wild. The Orphanage retains close relationship with Tsavo National Park even now.

Visit the center and watch these cute creatures up close, as they play in mud and drink from giant baby bottles. The visiting hours are between 11:00 am to 12:00 pm daily.

Brief Itinerary
The tour starts by picking you from your Hotel/JKIA Airport.
We will drive you to David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust have a walk through the little center from 11am – 12pm in an open space, with a rope fence around it. The youngest elephants come trotting out of the bush to greet their keepers who stand at the ready with giant bottles of milk. For the next 10-15 minutes you can watch each little one slurp and gargle their milk. When they’re done, there’s water to play with and keepers to nudge and get hugs from. You can reach out and touch and nuzzle any elephant that comes close to the ropes, occasionally they’ll slip under the ropes and have to be chased back by the keepers. While you get to watch them play and take photos. You find out how old they were when they arrived at the orphanage, where they were rescued from, and what got them into trouble. The most common reasons for getting orphaned being: mother’s poached, falling into wells, and human/wildlife conflict.

Once the youngest are all fed, they are led back into the bush, and it’s the turn of the 2-3 year olds. Some of them can feed themselves, and some are still fed by their keepers. It’s very cute to watch them hold their giant milk bottles in their trunks and close their eyes with joy as they make quick work of several gallons of milk. Again, you are free to touch them if they come close to the ropes (and they will), and watch them interact with their keepers, munch on some branches of their favorite acacias, and play with the half drums of water and mud.