skip to main |
skip to sidebar
Yes, they are coming - images and thoughts from my perambulations in Gombe Stream - site of Jane Goodall's pioneering work on chimp behavior and glimpses into who "we" are. My work there was from a few years ago but the images still have relevance and shot on film have a quality that only now can I match shooting in digital. More over the next few days as well as new postings on the Wild Orphans elephants.
Yes - the Wild Orphans book is still out there - try here via Amazon for the few book dealers that have a copy. I am discussing reprinting the book with the publisher Welcome Books - I'll post something here when and if that occurs. Thanks to all who have asked.
In the beginning she was nearly invisible - not because of her diminutive size but her frail, shy manner. Not that any baby wants to be orphaned, but some you sensed were resigned to make the best of it from the moment they arrived and others, like Natumi, carried for days the feeling that this would all just go away if I don’t accept it. At first so many others were bolder, more precocious, warm, or needy. Natumi was definitely the little girl who I nearly missed entirely – until this photo emerged.
Who is Natumi? She was born sometime in February 1999 and rescued in April. She was orphaned after falling down a dry well on the Eland Hollow Farm, near Nanyuki, in north-central part of Kenya, East Africa. (Dry wells are often the result of mature elephants digging into the sandy creek or river bottoms in water during periods of drought – in 1999 the number of such well ‘strandings’ became chronic as a period of several years without rain began forcing elephants to dig deeper and deeper in search of water – eventually such deep holes entrap tiny calves.)
The reason for starting a blog... hmmm?Several reasons I suppose, my friends, my staff, kind people who attend my speaking presentations and want to hear more stories, more thoughts - perambulations - about this planet and my journeys over and across it, and more photos and sounds, my snapshots of a life that becomes more amazing as I grow older and realize how lucky, genuinely special and rare it has been.
But its also inspired by a fellow earthling - a creature I share little and everything with - her name is Natumi. She is a African elephant, now going on 10 years old, and living happily in the arid wilds of Kenya's East Tsavo National Park. She was the cover girl of my 2001 book Wild Orphans, the four year story of her and seven other orphaned babies struggle to survive and the amazing effort of the folks at the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust outside of Nairobi Kenya to keep these little floppy-eared alive. Over the next few weeks I'll post a collection of previous writings and new thoughts on Natumi and those days and what I think they mean now - a decade later. And to not bore everyone to death I'll post a wealth of photos and video as well.
