We have received donations of 2.853,19 €
Dearest esteemed donators and supporters,
we are extremely grateful that we have received more donations from you and are very thankful for the 2.853,19 €. We would like to express our sincere gratitude to everyone of you and please be assured that your donation - how ever small or big it may have been - is hugely essential. This is a quick update on what we used the funds for:
The elephant parade counts 5 trunks by now - three females and two males. We had already told you about Savannah (our oldest of 2,5 years), Burigi (almost 2 years), Maswa (1 year) and Malamboni (9 months). They are all well and thriving which makes us very happy and a bit proud, too. Recently, the baby herd had a new addition - Kiteto, a tiny female elephant baby of about 3 months old. Kiteto arrived about 4 weeks ago in such a critical stage that we did not dare hope that she would actually pull through and survive. But against all odds, she proves to have endless energy and - most of all - an undying will to live which gives us hope that she might be with us for many years to come. She definitely drinks as much milk as all the others and is therefore doing her part of diminishing the very precious specialised milk formlar. Savannah and Burigi on the other hand have developed so well that they are no longer in mere survival mode, but are indeed thriving and have a lot of energy to spare for more and more nonsense! Currently, their biggest challenge and joy is to dismantle the fence around their nighttime enclosure. The simple wooden structure is no longer sufficient and we urgently need to start reinforcing it. To initiate the strengthening of the elephant night time enclosure, we would like to use 2.000,00 € of the donations.
The rest of the available amount we would like to use on two other species:Our zebra herd has also grown again - on the 1st of January, 2021, we received a baby Zebra filly. Kwanza, meaning the first, is a true and elegant beauty. When we received yet another baby zebra at the end of March 2021, a little male called Pablo, Kwanza rapidly became his cuddle partner. The survival of both these very young zebras is mainly due to the dedicated and loving care of their caretaker, Sele. We would like to use 703,19 € for Kwanza and Pablo for milk formula, medication, care and accommodation. The remaining amount of 150,00 Euro we would like to use on the palm-nut vulture that was rescued and brought to Makoa in a very critical and sad state. The bird was suffering from acute poisoning and would have died without treatment. With a lot of care, patience and some luck, we managed to stabilise him and are now hopeful that he will make a complete recovery and can return to the wild at some point. However, it is still a long way to go until freedom, as he still needs permanent monitoring and treatment with as little human contact as possible in order to not habituate him. Vultures are the health police of any ecosystem and therefore play a vital role, but come under a lot of pressure and threat, and are highly endangered. Consequently, it would be a real success story to see this bird return to his natural habitat - and very gratifying to have played a contributing factor to his survival.
A big thank you again!
Susann, on behalf of the Kilimanjaro Animal CREW