As you may know, we are currently supporting The Sheldrick Wildlife Trust with its Orphans’ Project in Kenya. The project focuses on providing orphan elephants and other animals with lots of TLC and the vital formula milk that they depend on for survival, as they are being hand-reared by the Sheldrick Wildlife Trust team.

We wanted to share with you an update on this initiative straight from the Sheldrick Trust Nursery and tell you a little more about the new arrival, baby white rhino Maarifa, who is now one of the 95 milk dependant wild animals reliant on the care of the Sheldrick Wildlife Trust.

At only a few days old, this tiny rhino calf was found desperately struggling to find a way out of a muddy pool, as her mother did all she could to extract her. But despite her efforts to save her newborn, the mother was in fact making the situation worse. As the patrol team observed from a distance for quite some time, they eventually decided to intervene in order to save the little rhino’s life.

Once rescued, the little rhino became attached to her rescuers and as they tried their best to hide so that she would return to her mother, the determined baby stuck to the rangers’ sides as her uninterested mother wandered back to the bush with a male. Efforts to reunite the baby with her mother lasted the rest of the day and keepers desperately tried to bring the two together before nightfall.

After a second day spent trying to reunite mother and calf without success, the operation was eventually called off and the baby was transported to the Sheldrick Trust Nursery to give the little rhino the best chance of survival. Back at the nursery, a fresh stall was made up so that the new arrival, now named Maarifa, was able to settle in amongst the other orphan animals.

Maarifa, desperate for milk, drank her first bottle of formula well. And despite a few days desperate for a drink, after a few hours of settling in her personality became increasingly playful and energetic. Her future now looks a lot brighter thanks to the Sheldrick Trust and the dedicated rangers in Meru National Park who worked tirelessly to give her a second chance. When she is older, Maarifa will gradually return to the wild, reintegrating with other white rhinos living wild in Nairobi National Park.

The Love Brand Milk Matters project helps to provide milk for orphan animals such as Maarifa. To be able to support such a wonderful and vital cause is an honour for Love Brand, and you can help too! By purchasing any Love Brand product – you are helping contribute to the formula milk which these orphaned elephants and rhinos depend on.

We will continue to keep you updated on the progress of this project with help from the Sheldrick Wildlife Trust, so you will be able to follow along with stories from the Orphans’ Project.