Elephant SOS This Wild Life

In the heart of Africa,

a young family is heading for an epic adventure.

They are moving with their three children

to a remote Kenyan wilderness.

Mum Saba is here to run a safari camp...

Welcome.

..while dad Frank is helping to protect elephants.

Collar's almost on, now the scary bit.

But raising a family

and running a business in the bush is going to be a massive challenge.

There are monkeys in the kitchen...

Oh, you monkeys, I'm going to kill you.

..medical emergencies...

It's bad and it needs urgent action.

..and wildlife in need of help.

My heart really is in my mouth.

It's going to be a huge gamble.

Will the business survive Saba's first season in charge?

Oh, my God.

This time, the rainy season arrives in Samburu.

It's looking like it's going to be a mega storm.

The camp is under threat.

Both people and animals are fighting for survival.

Poor Cherie, I've known her for such a long time

and she has something terribly, terribly wrong.

The only thing we can do, and it's a very difficult decision,

is maybe try to rescue the calf.

Today, Elephant Watch camp

is not open for business.

It has room for 12 guests in six luxury tents,

but, right now, it's too risky to have anyone staying.

That's because it's rainy season.

The rain is coming. This is already the first floodwaters.

The tents come down at this time every year.

-Hey, guys.

-Hi.

-Oh, you've done so much already.

OK. Towards me. Wait, wait. Come this way, Philip.

Come towards me, that's it. And up - there we go.

It can stay there for the moment, can't it?

Saba has real cause for concern.

Four years ago, a flash flood swept downriver.

It was the worst disaster in living memory.

Tents were washed away and the whole camp had to be rebuilt from scratch.

This year, she's not taking any chances.

Hey!

The team is setting up a storage tent

half a mile from the river on high ground.

This is where we put all of the tents that we have to evacuate

because of potential flooding.

SABA SPEAKS LOCAL LANGUAGE

We've got three tents which are particularly prone to flooding

and so we have to get them down and we have to get all the furniture

out and up onto the hill, just in case we get hit by floodwater.

Saba and the team still have lots to do before the rains arrive.

On his way to work, Saba's husband Frank has hit the first downpour.

Somehow, these windscreen wipers are not working.

We're going to need a snorkel for this car now.

I remember when I first came here, I thought, "God, what a dry and..."

..you know, "hostile environment," and I often think of that when I...

when I arrive here now, cos it feels totally transformed.

Frank is Head of Operations at Save The Elephants -

a charity set up by Saba's father.

He works with an expert local team.

Morning.

They are carrying out one of the longest-running studies

of elephant behaviour in the world.

Their most experienced field researcher is David Daballen.

He can identify 500 individual elephants by sight.

Most of the elephants will have some physical marks,

like on their ears they will have a, you know, a nick, a hole,

a wart and many other things that you can identify them with.

-All right, David?

-OK.

-Are you ready to go?

The rainy season attracts elephants into the reserve.

David and Frank are heading out to check on the new arrivals.

David spots a female elephant behaving strangely.

Yeah.

-She's got...

-See that, see that?

-..a tummy pain.

-Yeah. There she is.

-She's crossing her legs...

-Yeah.

-..her tummy's hurting so bad.

-Mmm.

Cherie is a 30-year-old female who David has known for years.

He doesn't know what's wrong.

I just saw her picking all this grass

and putting into her mouth and she doesn't even eat,

so basically we will just keep following her and see what happens.

Cherie is an experienced mother. This is her third calf.

He's six months old and David's named him Sokotei.

David's going to keep a close eye on both mother and calf.

Samburu National Reserve in Northern Kenya

is part of a wilderness

that stretches hundreds of miles in every direction.

It's home to over 900 elephants.

They're drawn here by the Ewaso Nyiro River,

the only source of water.

The river doesn't just bring life.

In the rainy season, it can also bring devastation.

This is why the camp is closed during the rains.

Floodwaters are rushing towards them and there's more rain on its way.

We've got a big storm coming.

Within minutes, the river rises by a metre.

If we get a second tributary coming in, this is going to stack up

on the other one, you literally see the river rising like that.

And that stick there, that's our marker.

When that gets covered, then you know we've got a big flood coming.

It's not just flash floods, the rain itself is a problem.

It's all hands on deck to protect the mess tent.

SABA SPEAKS LOCAL LANGUAGE

So it's looking like it's going to be a mega storm,

so we've got to get this cover on the roof to prevent the roof from

getting too wet because once it's wet it all soaks into the thatch.

The weight of the wet thatch could damage the building.

Well, this is our mess tent

and there's a great big sag in the middle, which is ridiculous when it

comes to rain, so what we have to do when the rainy seasons come is cover

everything in plastic to stop the rain soaking right into the thatch.

The team has learned from bitter experience that with this river,

you can't take any chances.

With the tents covered up,

it's time to make sure their contents are safe too.

They're packing away all the soft furnishings

in a metal storage container.

This is where we store most of our stuff.

You see these great big concrete posts here?

This is where it used to be but with the big flood in 2010,

it knocked it right off

and we had to put it up on these temporary stands on the oil drums.

We're probably about 100 metres from the river,

but still, although it's raised ground,

I reckon the water came up to...

I mean, it must have come up to about here on me.

The mess tent was just totally under water, we lost everything there

and had about two or three tents swept right downstream.

Camp is prepared for the worst.

All they can do now is wait and hope the river subsides.

Out in the bush, David Daballen has wasted no time in getting help

for Cherie and her young calf.

He's brought in Kenya Wildlife Service vet Matthew Mutinda.

She must be behind there. This is the group.

Yep, that's her.

Cherie has separated herself from the rest of the herd.

It's not normal for an elephant that has a family to be on her own

like this, so it's quite odd

and just signifies that there's something wrong with her.

She might keep up, but, you know, I think she just wants some peace

because she's... I think she's in pain.

Depressions indicate a loss of condition.

A loss of fatty tissue that should be covering that area

and, er, shows a long-standing chronic problem.

As to what the problem is, it's very hard to tell.

If Cherie doesn't improve,

the consequences could be serious for Sokotei.

He's totally dependent on her for milk.

Elephants have one offspring at a time.

Baby elephants suckle for two years,

so the bond between mother and calf is very strong.

Without his mother, Sokotei can't survive.

David will keep a close eye on mother and baby

in case Cherie's condition deteriorates.

It's not just elephant babies that need a lot of looking after.

With the threat of flooding gone for today,

Saba can put her girls to bed.

Tiny, tiny teeth.

Oh, and Nini's such a big girl,

she's doing her own teeth, isn't she?

-What shall we read?

-Here.

That one? Oh, let's read another one. Let's read the lion one.

-I love this one.

-Love for you, love for you.

What's this one about the lion?

Twins Luna and Mayian are nearly three.

Climbs up onto the back...

No matter where you live,

bedtime stories are a special part of the day

and five-year-old Selkie isn't too old to join in.

There's his lioness with the little cubs.

They're like the little cubs we've seen here, aren't they, darling?

Um, but we didn't see...

David's concern about Cherie and her calf is growing.

This calf has been, you know, slowly, slowly having less and less milk,

which is not really very healthy.

She can totally get dehydrated, start losing weight,

and hence she can be attacked by any sort of infection.

He's called back the Kenya Wildlife Service.

I mean, that's what she does the whole day, kind of stretches

and goes back and sometimes drop as if she's going to drop.

If Cherie is unable to feed Sokotei,

then they risk losing both mother and baby.

Cherie knows that her calf needs something to drink,

so they head for the river.

But water alone is not enough to keep a six-month-old calf alive.

The vet has a tough decision to make.

Should they rescue the calf before it gets weaker?

David has called Saba away from camp.

She's known Cherie for many years.

-Yeah, she just went down there, she just...

-Is she drinking?

Yeah, she just collapsed and she was sitting there for a long time

and then she went down.

The terrible thing is that calf

is just really beginning to lose all its energy.

That poor little baby.

So what do we do?

Let, you know, let Kenya Wildlife decide and we can...

-Help.

-..help in any way we can.

They're desperate to help,

but only the vet can decide whether to intervene and rescue Sokotei.

For now, all they can do is keep watch.

And save that baby, these days anyway.

While Saba's away, her girls are going on an adventure.

HE SPEAKS LOCAL LANGUAGE

Mporian is a local Samburu warrior and close family friend.

Saba relies on him to keep her children safe.

The girls are getting used to life in camp, but they haven't yet been

to visit their nearest neighbours, Mporian's family.

There's lots for the kids to learn.

This is the girls' first experience of life, Samburu style.

Back at the river, the vet has decided not to intervene.

He thinks there's still a chance that Cherie may recover.

He will leave David and Saba to stay by their side.

THUNDER RUMBLES

And today, nature is being kind.

The rain has brought new shoots, full of protein to eat.

It might just be enough to keep young Sokotei going.

And Cherie rejoins her family.

ELEPHANT TRUMPETS

Things are looking up.

THUNDER RUMBLES

At Mporian's village, the girls are learning about life in the bush.

GOAT BLEATS

Mporian shows them how to breathe life into a newborn goat.

MPORIAN BLOWS

NEWBORN GOAT SQUEAKS

The girls are seeing how important livestock is to the Samburu people.

GOATS BLEAT

David's joined Saba's husband Frank back at base.

They decide to put in a call to an elephant orphanage in Nairobi,

just in case Sokotei needs to be rescued.

David is returning to Saba in the field, to check on Cherie.

She doesn't have a physical injury

and that makes it very difficult, even for the vet,

to actually determine what is actually the problem.

All I know is that some... a really bad internal thing

like a stomach issue or some virus or some bacteria

or some, you know, something bad.

But keeping track of Cherie and Sokotei

is becoming increasingly difficult.

They've joined a huge herd.

A lot of elephants here. My goodness!

At this time of year when the rains come,

the elephants all get together to socialise.

I haven't even counted them, but it's well over a hundred.

They are heading into rough country and the weather is closing in again.

There's a massive rainstorm coming

and we're trying to get to them quickly.

-THUNDER CRASHES

-Whoa, thunder!

It'll take all David's skill to find them.

David, do you copy?

She's where?

At the back?

Oh, my God, here's Cherie. Poor Cherie.

I've known her for such a long time.

The worry is...

..if she dies, then there's a very high likelihood

that her calf will also die because we probably won't find it.

In many ways, we shouldn't interfere,

but sometimes with elephants you just feel like they suffer

on such a level of consciousness

that one has to act, and especially for that baby.

That poor little calf must be absolutely desperate for milk

and she pushes it off every time it comes near.

It has absolutely no chance of survival at all in the wild

because its family won't incorporate it, they won't take it in.

They don't look after young orphans like that who are un-weaned,

they just can't, it's too much investment.

THUNDER RUMBLES

The only thing we can do, and it's a very difficult decision,

is maybe try to rescue the calf.

But we can't make that call, it has to be done by the vet

and by much higher levels of authority at Kenya Wildlife Service.

And in the meantime, we just have to monitor her

and whether there's any hope at all.

It's a tough one.

At camp, the river has finally retreated.

OK, are you ready?

Tonight, the only flood is in the bathroom.

-Well, that wasn't quite enough, was it?

-No, that's too little.

Daddy, some mud.

Is it? It's a bit of mud. OK, give it a good wash.

-Which bits are still dirty?

-These.

-The top bit?

The family is passing a fairly typical night in the wilderness.

Frank is baby-sitting and Saba is elephant-sitting.

-The whole group is here, there's a...

-Which is good news.

Which is such good news.

The whole family is kind of interested with her, which is

amazing, they're all surrounding all the calves and everyone.

From the minute they're born, these females spend every day together.

They live as long as humans and have equally strong emotional bonds.

Cherie's family understands that something is wrong.

She's not looking good, David.

She looks like she's going to fall down.

She's definitely not doing that great.

She's just fallen down.

-Really?

-Yes.

That's her.

She has just gone down.

There she is.

But she's just... Yeah, she just... Yeah, she just went down.

I think that she's just trying to stay alive for her baby,

like any mother would,

but because of that little one,

she's just finding it very hard to let go.

They're so like humans, elephants.

Her little baby is trying to push her up.

Oh, she's going down, my God.

We know that they have a sense of their own mortality...

..but at least she's with her family, she's with her babies.

It's reaching out its trunk and trying to hug his mother.

DAVID SIGHS

But I've got to stay here.

The problem is that,

if for one reason or another, that baby leaves its mother's side,

then we've got absolutely no hope of finding it tomorrow.

I just need to make sure.

Saba and David will keep an all-night vigil

for Sokotei and Cherie.

Next time - Sokotei is rescued.

He's rushed to an elephant orphanage.

Can the team help him pull through?