Transcript and Answers: Sanctuary offers orphaned elephants a chance in life

Basilinga was two weeks old when his mother was shot by a poacher. He stayed by her side until wildlife rangers found them, but it was too late to save his mum, so  just a few weeks old he was brought here, to the David Sheldrick Elephant orphanage in Nairobi.

 "Out of the 25 baby elephants that we have, I would say 90 to around 95 per cent of them it is because of poaching. So you can see how bad it is."

 Conservationists say poaching levels are the highest since records began and unless it’s tackled soon, wild elephants could be extinct in Africa within a decade.   Adult elephants are killed for their tusks.  The value of ivory has skyrocketed in recent years due to growing demand in China and the Far East that fuels the illegal trade.

 "North of the Zambezi there are a lot of countries that have lost all their elephants and central Africa looks as though it’s going to lose all theirs. We've lost most of ours, the population's gone down from 100,000 to, they reckon, about, it’s probably about 25,000, 20,000 if that now, and declining rapidly."

 This Christmas the trust is asking foster parents to come forward and help raise the baby elephants by sponsoring them. They have to be fed every three hours, and the keepers even sleep in the same room.  The more donations they get, the more elephants like Basilinga they can save.

"We know he will be making it, because he has passed the most critical stage in elephants, which is the teething, he is above that, he is feeding on plants and we believe he will be back into the wild, successfully."

 In 2008, four southern African countries were allowed to sell their ivory stockpiles. Conservationists say this one-off move just whetted Asia's appetite for more, fuelling poaching. And the small legal, but badly policed, ivory market that now exists provides a cover for traders to offload illegal tusks. 

 The David Sheldrick trust is now campaigning for a total and indefinite ban on ivory sales -- but until the demand decreases, the trust will continue to take in orphaned elephants and raise them until they can fend for themselves.

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