This photo shows a woman feeding an orphaned baby elephant at Elephant Havens orphanage in Mirapene, Botswana, Nov. 26, 2022. (Photo by Esther Mmolai/Xinhua)
Four orphaned elephants will be reintroduced into the wild in 2023, after spending five years at the Elephant Havens orphanage in Botswana.
GABORONE, Dec. 23 (Xinhua) -- Four orphaned elephants will be reintroduced into the wild in 2023, after spending five years at the Elephant Havens orphanage in Botswana.
Boago Poloko, managing director of the orphanage, said in an interview on Wednesday that they have secured a plot where they will release the elephants to stay with zero human contact, before eventually being reintroduced into the wild.
The orphanage, nestled along the Gomoti River banks at the edge of the Okavango Delta in northwestern Botswana, provides refuge, daily care, and companionship for orphaned baby elephants until they are ready to be reintroduced into the wild.
After they were abandoned as babies and could not survive on their own, the four elephants were taken to the orphanage to be fed, cared for, and eventually named in order to bond with the handlers, who live with them in their enclosure, Poloko said.
The four will be the first batch of orphaned elephants released to nature from the orphanage, which has more than 10 orphaned baby elephants. ■
