Elephant Trunk Tricks

One of the most important lessons I learned over the few years I spent with the Wild Orphans was to never assume I knew anything definitive about elephants. It's at that very moment they seem to know they have you, and presto! the come at you from a perspective you never imagined.

For the new elephant project in Asia I am digging through and surfing into mountains of elephant research, over the coming months as that research expands I'll try and share as much information and links here as I can. This first one is a favorite for it involves elephant trunks - which I am certain are separate creatures from the beasts they are attached to - or at least there is a symbiotic co-dependency relationship. Seriously, watch that trunk for a few minutes and it seems to be doing a whole range of things independent from its host. Trunks are brilliant!

Watch Video Click Here

BBC camerman Mike Holding commented, "I have spent countless days in the company of elephants, and I believe this was a timely reminder that however much we think we know about elephants, they always surprise us with some new and intelligent piece of behaviour."

Watching Wild Orphans from a distance

During the early months of filming at the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust I learned my plan, my ideas, were my own - the baby elephants and circumstances of their survival were the true dictators of what would be ultimately accomplish. Sometimes that was extremely frustrating, and painful, especially when it involved the death of an orphan. But ultimately I was a guest, an outsider. As a photographer and writer that's my job - view from the outside, try to understand the view from the inside - the people, places and creatures that live it every day, and then shed light on both with camera and pen. And if it works, you, the reader and viewer see how those two world mix, match, conflict and co-exist.

At the core of this profession is constantly reminding myself to remain open to change, flexible in plans, and receptive to new perspectives. That was critical to the final success of the Wild Orphans project in that first phase, so it seems is the case in Wild Orphans part II.

The orphanage over the past decade has become a mecca for anyone wanting to tell a heart-warming tale of little elies. That attention is partly due to the Wild Orphans book - I know by the number of producers from around the world who have emailed or called me for copies of the book as they prepare to explore the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust and baby elephants for their own programming. In that sense what was created a decade ago was more than a book - and I delighted Daphne Sheldrick and the dedicated people of the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust have benefited from all the support they gave the Wild Orphans project. As a consequence the Trust and folks that have to keep orphaned baby elephants and rhinos as their first priority have been inundated with requests to access and use the babies as celebrities. In the past 60 Minutes, BBC, and many others have come to tell the Wild Orphan story. Currently National Geographic and IMAX both have projects in the works. (As soon as those two productions are available I'll post them here on the blog.)

Sadly, with so much going on, I won't be returning in the near future to pick up Natumi's story and bridge a decade of being wild in the bush of Tsavo East NP. Instead I'll watch from a distance and continue updates and links here to the Trust's work and the babies, especially Natumi, who I annually adopt. (if you would like to foster and support a Wild Orphan baby or any of the others please link here to the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust site.) Instead, I will be focusing my efforts and this blog on another elephant project in SE Asia and India that looks at domesticated elephants and elephant-human conflict issues. The first blog post of that project will be coming shortly linked to a recent visit to India's Kaziranga National Park.

Again, if you have not donated to the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust I urge you to do so, and receive their email newsletter updates.

Elephant Gala Fundraiser
February 25th - SoHo, New York City

Looking for an opportunity to help the orphans? Please join U.S. Friends of The David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust for a special evening on February 25, 2010 to support the orphaned elephants and rhinos of Kenya. More Gala information and sign up.

to benefit

The David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust

Thursday, 6:30 to 9:30 pm

at The Wild Horses of Sable Island Gallery
Attire is cocktail or dressed business

Important RSVP/Purchase Tickets Information: Tickets are limited for this event and are thus available on a first-come, first-serve basis. Tickets will not be sold at the door the night of the event.

Helping Wild Orphans in Kenya

Many of you have asked about helping at the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust, beyond the always needed donation and adopting of an orphan. As I mention at my speaking presentations it's very difficult to work directly with the orphaned elephants and rhinos for a number of reasons. The primary concern is time, most visitors have only a few weeks to a couple months to volunteer and that creates separation issues - in becoming orphans the babies have already lost one life connection, to attach to a volunteer and that person leave would be potentially devastating. Something Dr Dame Daphne Sheldrick (photo above) is dedicated to not let happen twice.

If you are going to be in Kenya for a year or longer docents are often considered for meeting with the visiting public and school children each day. For that opportunity you would need to contact the Trust directly and explain your offer. To do so contact them via their contact webpage

"Live Personally"

"I once had a sparrow alight upon my shoulder for a moment,
while I was hoeing in a village garden,
and I felt that I was more distinguished by that circumstance that I should have been by any epaulet I could have worn."
Henry David Thoreau

Sorting through decade old notebooks and scraps of paper scattered in my office, like a post-parade confetti shower - my filing system - I repeatedly stumble over notes reflecting on that narrow footbridge that spans the difference and similarity between elephants and humans. It is a space, a chasm, we have no pedestrian word for - and I wonder if that lack of a word, a common utterance, defines the barrier. Scribbled on more than one page I reread that I mulled the impact of no word. And my conclusion then, as now, implicates our fear of sharedness. Acceptance of sharedness requires responsibility for actions on scales large and small, personal and global.

As I have mention in other places, my experience with the orphaned elephants and their keepers changed my photography, perspective and ultimately my life. The further my orbit from those days, weeks and months in Kenya, and the more I explore returning to further the journey, the more understanding relationships play in my fundamental thinking of what roads that journey must travel.

A relationship with one's own life, the world immediately tangential, is one I have returned to over and over the past several months. In someways it feels most like Frost's road "the one less traveled by".

In a keynote I gave recently I talked about my rethinking and expanding of the concept of "Think Globally, Act Locally". I am convinced we need to take a further step to fully embrace sharedness - that is to "Live Personally". Look no further than my own self-world, impact it solely, and with kindness, and the ringlets will radiate out, locally and globally.

Some attribute the original phrase "Think Globally, Act Locally" to Scots town planner and social activist Patrick Geddes. The exact phrase never appeared in Geddes' 1915 book "Cities in Evolution," but the philosophy was clearly evident. The portion of his thinking that resonates for me is that balanced living occurs, "... in active sympathy with the essential and characteristic life of the place concerned." I don't think governments, or communities can have "active sympathy", that is a personal attribute of a living creature, Me, I must bring active sympathy to the world, and that can only be done by living personally.

Living with elephants and keepers the short time I was afforded opened an amazing window into active sympathy by two creatures living personally - the result was a sharedness that over time began to heal the most tragic of wounds.

Booming in the Baby Business - Unfortunately

CNN World posted a news story today about the expanding life at the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust orphanage in Kenya, and things, unfortunately are booming in the baby business. Saga seems to be the same old story - drought, poaching and farmer conflicts. The new twist is the lack of tourist dollars to help support the orphans. In previous years tourism boomed and smaller numbers of little elies meant managing was, well, manageable. Now the situation has become more problematic with more elies and fewer dollars. If you would like to help you can DONATE HERE.

Here's the video and link to the CNN story:

Wild Orphan photos support environmental journalistic freedom

Almost a decade after some of the Wild Orphan images were originally created I am proud to say they continue to resonate and draw the attention of editors and publishers. Most recently four of the photographs created were selected to appear in the latest edition of the Reporters Without Borders (Reporters Sans Frontieres), or RSF, annual fund-raising publication, Nature: 100 Photographs for Press Freedom. Read more about it in my posting 100 Photographs for Press Freedom.