Maluti was fortunate. She'd sunk up to her belly in the mud of a waterhole, and the herd must have failed to free her and decided, for the safety of the others, to leave her to her fate. When the gamewarden stumbled across her, she was sunburnt, dehydrated and close to death.
A rescue mission was immediately mounted: a vet from the Kenya Wildlife Service rushed up to Meru National Park near Mount Kenya to treat and sedate the month-old elephant, and a plane from East African Air Charters was hired to fly her to Nairobi.
Within a day, she was being cared for at Daphne Sheldrick's elephant orphanage in Nairobi National Park. By chance, another orphan arrived at the same time - two-month-old Natumi, whose mother had been shot by rangers while destroying crops near the northern national reserve of Samburu. The action happened at night, and, if they'd seen the baby in time, the mother might have been spared.
So Maluti (named after the water hole where she was found) and Natumi ("lucky" in the Samburu language) became the latest of 30 orphaned or abandoned baby elephants which have been cared for by Mrs Sheldrick. Fourteen have survived and been moved at the age of one to join their predecessors for a gradual transition to the wild in the vast Tsavo National Park.
The 50% survival rate indicates the difficulty of raising elephant orphans, whose trauma and bewilderment can lead to fatal illness. In their first days at the orphanage, Maluti and Natumi were still confused, exploring their new surroundings and blundering into bushes and people's legs, rather like human toddlers. They seemed happiest playing at the water trough, with plenty of physical contact with each other.
Mrs Sheldrick began raising orphan animals when her husband David, who died in 1977, was warden of the Tsavo National Park. Her successes include rhinos, buffaloes, impala, eland and duikers, and she founded the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust to raise funds and run the orphanage.
At the nearby Park headquarters, Mr Kingoo leads the way to an outbuilding filled with the the skulls and bones of hundreds of elephants, victims of drought in the early 1970s or the epidemic of poaching which reduced Tsavo's elephant population from about 20,000 to below 7,000 in the 1980s.
"The rhinos were wiped out, and the government realised that unless something was done the elephant would be the next victim," said Mr Kingoo.
"So the Kenya Wildlife Service was started in 1989, using vehicles and wardens and field stations and semi- automatic rifles, and within three years all the bandits had gone. Now we only have isolated incidents."
Fear of a resurgence in poaching underlies Mrs Sheldrick's passionate opposition to the decision in 1997 by the Conference on International Trade in Endangered Species (Cites) to partially lift its ban on ivory trading. Pressure for relaxation comes from southern African states which have suffered less from poaching and cull elephants to protect famland.
• The David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust, PO Box 15555, Nairobi, Kenya, or c/o Care for the Wild, Horsham Road, Rusper RH12 4QX.
