When 11-month-old elephant calf Boteti was orphaned, Botswana’s drought had become so severe, the infant was close to starvation.
Her mother, in her dying moments, had brought Boteti to the edge of near-dry waterhole to drink. There, utterly depleted, she collapsed and died in front of her calf.
This was the scene our team discovered along the dried-up Boteti River in the Makgadikgadi National Park as a deadly drought destroyed wildlife populations.
When Boteti was found by our team, she was so hungry she was attempting to eat her dead mother’s tail in a desperate bid to fill her belly.
Elephants have been proven to grieve their dead, experiencing similar emotions to humans when losing a beloved member of their herd.
It seems Boteti’s mother walked for days in the scorching heat to bring her baby to water, ultimately collapsing and dying on the banks of the near-dry Boteti River.
Our team witnessed the devastating scene. They rushed to Boteti’s side, staying with her for hours until help arrived in the form of Elephant Havens – a dedicated elephant orphanage located two and a half hours away.
Boteti and 12 other orphans in Elephant Havens’ care must be bottle-fed a special formula every three hours to survive. Because calves stay with their mothers – males for up to 20 years, and females for all their lives – receiving emotional support is just as important.
People from the local community are trained to care for elephants until they are weaned and introduced into a soft-release area. Here they remain for another five years, and bond with one another to form strong family units. These units will endure when they are ultimately released into safe, protected areas.
Before they are released into the protected Okavango Delta, the elephants are fitted with satellite collars that provide hourly updates on their location. This helps ensure that they stay a safe distance from communities, reducing human-wildlife conflict.
