Bev's Excellent Birthday Gift

Today, my blogger and real life friend Bev (who lives in Davis, California) did a particularly unique and beautiful thing as a birthday gift for a special friend of hers named Peggy, who lives in Perth Australia. Both of them are great animal lovers.

(They take in orphans from the animal shelter and nurse them to health so that they can be adopted. Her Flikr site is puppy-lovers heaven. On the other side of the world, Peggy cares for orphaned kangaroos).

Peggy recently visited a Nairobi shelter for orphaned elephants and rhinos. and it gave Bev an idea for a very meaningful and creative birthday gift. From Bev's blog:

I remember the tales of the traumatized babies, some only weeks old, watching their mothers be slaughtered by poachers. One of the articles linked on the Sheldrake web sites says, "When I met [Daphne] Sheldrake in 1989, she was soothing a baby elephant so traumatized after ivory poachers killed its family that it screamed in its sleep, apparently suffering nightmares."

You know what that did to my heart.

Each baby has an individual caretaker, so they are with a single human being 24 hrs a day, but they have discovered that separation anxiety is very real for these babies, so they rotate the caretakers so that the babies don't get too attached to one person, who might have to leave for one reason or another.

I won't spoil the story. Let Bev do tell the tale to you. But look at the face of that elephant.