From Jobless to Elephant 'Baby-Sitter'

When Dorothy Lowakutuk completed her diploma course in Community Development and Social Work, she never envisioned a career as a 'babysitter’.

But finding herself jobless, the lady from the little-known Lonkuninyani village in Samburu East came across an unusual work opportunity—taking care of abandoned and orphaned elephants at Reteti Elephant Community Sanctuary.

Coming from a pastoral community, she was brought up in an environment with domestic animals like goats and cows. Occasionally, when going to the field to look for goats to milk, she would see wild animals from a distance, but she had never laid her eyes on an elephant before coming to the sanctuary.

Clad in the green khaki uniform of elephant keepers, Lowakutuk, with a team of dedicated assistants, has been raising half-tonne babies for seven years. As she puts it, it is a Monday-to-Monday, 24-hour-a-day job of routine, patience, and dedication.

For the elephant keeper, the thrill lies in training, enriching, and caring for 13 herds of baby elephants at the sanctuary. Whether she is contributing to research or educating visitors about the conservation of this endangered species, the work she does helps her wild counterparts in a big way.

To start her day, Lowakutuk greets the elephants with a hearty “Good morning!” Often, the baby elephants will greet her in turn by flapping their ears and vocalising through rumbles to show their excitement.

“I then carefully examine each of them, looking for cuts, scrapes, injuries, or illnesses that may have occurred overnight. Once I complete my assessment, I provide them with milk in the feeding bottle and a little hay, and head out to clean their habitat,” says Lowakutuk as she goes through her morning routine that starts at 6:30 am every day.

As the elephants enjoy breakfast in the barn, keepers and keeper aides clean the outdoor habitat and freshen up the enrichment feeders. The 27-year-old mother of two adds: “Maintenance of the elephant enclosures includes cleaning the pools, refilling divots the animals have made on the ground, and creating large mounds of sand. Elephants enjoy going for a swim, especially on hot days, and often roll around the mounds, lean up against them for a rest, and toss the dirt and sand onto their backs to protect their skin from the sun.”

Lowakutuk explains that in addition to providing these natural enrichment elements to the elephant enclosures, they also set up puzzle feeders and large toys in the yard to encourage the elephants to explore, forage, and play.

She says that for the time she has worked at the sanctuary, the calves are like her own children. “I clean them with the help of my assistant keepers and feed them. Each elephant eats between 100 to 125 kilos of food every day. They defecate between 8 to 10 times every day, and there are six or seven boli (poop) in a pile. That breaks down to about one pile per elephant every two hours!” says Lowakutuk, as she shows this reporter around the sanctuary.

She recalls that the elephants at the sanctuary were brought in when they were two weeks old and it was a big challenge to feed them then. “We had to teach them how to handle the milk bottles with their trunks and cover them with blankets when the weather was cold,” she recalls.

For two years, the calves were in quarantine to avoid coming into contact with human beings. “That was the most challenging time for me at the sanctuary. It took a toll on me emotionally and physically seeing them suffer as they struggled to adapt to the new environment,” she recalls.

Peter Lenasalia, the sanctuary manager, says their daily training demonstration is a great way for visitors to see the animals up close and learn about their amazing physicality and intelligence. “We demonstrate many of the husbandry behaviours that help us assess the elephants’ health, and it provides the animals a chance to get some physical and mental exercise,” Lenasalia adds.

He reveals that the calves at the sanctuary have been there for seven years and have been taken care of to prepare them for their return to their natural habitat. Lenasalia says to understand the calves much better, the sanctuary records information that helps them analyse the elephants’ social, physical, and behavioural health over the period they have been there.

“Our notes include everything from how well each elephant ate, to how they interacted with each other and with keepers, to the samples that were collected during medical training, among other things,” he says. Lenasalia reveals that before the calves are released into the wild, the local community is taken through an awareness programme to enable them to assist in protecting the wild animals.

Sarara Foundation Community Conservancy director Titus Letapo said the recent release of the 13 calves to the wilderness was a major step towards the conservation of the endangered species and urged the community to help in taking care of them. “The release of the elephant calves is a milestone in the conservation efforts done by the conservancies and the sanctuary. We are excited about the partnership that has seen us take care of the calves until now.”

About Reteti Elephant Sanctuary

• It takes care of abandoned, orphaned calves and releases them into the wild herds adjoining Reteti.
• Elephants in Northern Kenya are orphaned or abandoned due to drought or man-made wells, human-wildlife conflicts, and natural mortality.