Almost straight from the get-go they treated me like one of the herd, playing with my hair and sniffing my wheelchair.
Adorable baby elephants are being deserted by their parents and left to DIE because of climate change in AfricaCredit: BBC
TV presenter Ade Adepitan visited a Nairobi orphanage in Kenya last yearCredit: BBC
As much as I loved spending time with these beautiful creatures, it was a visit that was tinged with sadness.
All 13 of these calves had either lost their parents or been abandoned in the search to find the basics of survival — food and water.
When one was rescued by keepers, he was being circled by lions, ready to eat him.
I’ve been to Kenya many, many times over the last five years.
But in the last two decades towns and cities have been getting larger, while animal habitats are getting smaller.
While in Britain we might see foxes going through our bins, Kenyans are starting to live alongside these mischievous creatures.
Elephant poaching — thanks to conservation charities — has gone down by 70 per cent in recent years.
But now climate change means they are having to travel further and further to reach water.