David Sheldrick

David Sheldrick , MBE , (born November 23, 1919 in Egypt , † June 13, 1977 in Kenya ) was a British founder of the large Tsavo East National Park in Kenya and during his subsequent work as a park manager an animal researcher for Kenyan species.

Sheldrick grew up as the only child of his British parents for most of his first six years in Kenya before he was sent to a British school when he was six. He spent the holidays on a Scottish estate, the owner of which took in school children from the British colonies during the holidays. At the age of 17 Sheldrick returned to Kenya after finishing school and saw his parents for the first time in 11 years.

Sheldrick worked on a farm until he was a member of the King's African Rifles in World War II and was deployed in Abyssinia and Burma . After the war he worked for the Tented Safari Company until he took up one of the first positions in the Kenyan national parks to be founded in 1948.

Sheldrick co-founded the large Kenyan national park Tsavo East National Park , which was established by parliamentary decision in April 1948 . At that time there was no street and not a single building in the park area. For more than 30 years Sheldrick lived and worked in the park together with his wife Daphne Sheldrick , built the park and looked after the animals, which he also made the basis for research. During this time, the Sheldricks raised a wide variety of young animals that had been orphaned through poaching , predators or periods of drought. It was important to him that the animals were released into the wild as soon as they were old enough. Sheldrick was the first to begin rescuing and raising orphaned elephants, which he at least managed to do with the over-two-year-olds - who were no longer dependent on breast milk.

At the end of 1976 he was called up from the national park to Nairobi .

David Sheldrick died unexpectedly of a serious heart attack in 1977 , after which Daphne Sheldrick moved from Nairobi to the national park. A short time later, based on her experience, she was asked to look after orphaned elephants again. In order to be able to devote herself fully to this task and in memory of her husband, she founded a foundation in 1977, the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust .

Web links

• Portrait on the sides of the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust (English)