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 Author, conservationist, and expert in animal husbandry, Kenya born Daphne Sheldrick is a recognized international authority on wild animal rearing. Co-warden of Kenya’s Tsavo National Park with her late husband, David Sheldrick, for 30 years she raised animal orphans before rehabilitating them back into the wild. Today, she heads The David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust, a center dedicated to the protection and preservation of elephants, Black Rhinos, and other endangered African species. Born on June 4th, 1934, Daphne grew up among wild and domestic animals. Educated at Nakuru Primary School and then Kenya High School, she graduated in 1950 with Honors, achieving the position of 8th in the colony. With the possibility of a bursary for university entrance in the Cambridge School Leaving Certificate, Daphne opted to marry instead. Living within the National Park with her husband, she observed and studied animals in both wild and captive environments.
From 1955 to 1976, Daphne worked alongside her husband raising orphaned animals from various species, including Elephants, Black Rhinos, Buffaloes, Zebra, Eland, Kudu, Impala, Duikers, Reedbuck, Dikdiks, Warthogs and many smaller animals such as civets, mongooses and birds. Her unparalleled knowledge of their minds and emotions, instincts, scent and chemistry, telepathic capabilities, individuality, vocalizations, and body language is largely credited to her lifelong devotion to these African species. Living and working in the Nairobi National Park since the death of her husband in 1977, Daphne shares her home with the animal Orphan’s Nursery. It is in this environment she hand reared 70 newborn elephant orphans, a feat unachieved by anyone else. Daphne continues to be an activist for wild animals worldwide. In 1998, she aided baby elephants captured by Indonesian Mahouts. Brutally training them in South Africa, the Mahouts would tightly hobble their front legs and chain their back legs, deprive them of adequate water and nutrition, and repeatedly beat them with rubber whips. When the authorities refused to adequately step in, Dorothy sent a never publically released tape of the abuses to South African Television, generating an unprecedented public outcry which helped secure the elephants’ freedom.
Daphne has promoted wildlife conservation through her numerous books, articles, lectures, and television appearances. In 2006, the BBC depicted her work with orphaned animals in a documentary series called “Elephant Diaries.” Filmed for over a year, the program received international acclaim, attracting six million viewers in England for the five nights it was shown.
For her fieldwork, Daphne was decorated with an MBE by the Queen of England in 1989 and was elevated to UNEP’s Global 500 Roll of Honor in 1992. In 2000, she was awarded an honorary doctorate in Veterinary Medicine and Surgery by Glasgow University and in the next two years, she would be awarded both a Moran of the Burning Spear by the Kenyan government and a Lifetime Achievement award by the BBC. Named one of the 35 most significant people in animal husbandry and wildlife conservation by Smithsonian Magazine in 2005, she was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II in 2006.
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