Many of you avid readers of our blog will know we have a soft spot for elephants and we sponsor Emma at Wildlife SOS. Emma has been at the Elephant Conservation & Care Centre now for a year and is happy and thriving.
We sponsor her on a monthly basis to help with her much-needed footbaths, vitamins, minerals and cucumbers and pumpkins (those are her favourite) as well as dates, nuts, and bananas.
Wildlife SOS recently produced a short video in which we got to see all of the lovely, rescued elephants sleeping and snoring soundly with Emma, the only one favouring blankets. The temperatures have fallen recently so as well as blankets, the elephants’ caregivers light dry dung fuel discs beside the elephants’ enclosures at night. Read more about Emma’s Rescue-versary https://wildlifesos.org/elephant/emma-celebrates-one-year-of-freedom-with-wildlife-sos/
Fundraising is essential to Wildlife SOS because India homes 70% of the existing elephant population. Problems can arise when wild elephants destroy crops and harvests. These challenges often lead to the capture or killing of India’s wild elephants. Poaching is also a huge problem as money can be made out of processional elephants.
Wildlife SOS is all about the rescue and care of endangered animals but also the ongoing support of communities affected by migrating elephants and the regeneration of poaching communities through education. It’s not just about elephants; the whole charity began with bears and now it’s a veritable animal society. The charity has developed a way of tracking herds that are at risk of getting too close to communities and alert systems to notify people when elephants are moving into their areas https://wildlifesos.org/chronological-news/living-with-elephants-solutions-from-the-chhattisgarh-wild-elephant-project/
It takes $250 to train a village about avoiding elephant encounters that can prove deadly. It costs $55 to help just one biologist track a herd considered to be “at risk” for just one day. The cost of fuel is $32 a day to protect a wild herd.