The experience was very engaging and emotional, we learnt about elephant behavior and how the elephant orphanage cares for their orphans. We got to touch, feed and feel the elephants, this gave us a perspective on how sensitive and kind these animals are. The workers told us about their emotional connections to the elephants and how different elephants interact with each other. For example, the worker told us about how the elephants took care of the youngest link, their matriarchal instincts took initiative to look after the babies : Joy. During the experience, I felt very connected to the elephants especially botho, the elephant who was transported by boat, his story stood out to me and made me engage with him more than the other orphans. The NGO is attacking a very good issue, it’s conserving the species of the african elephant through the protection of the species future generations.

This experience contributes to my learning and understanding of human-wildlife interaction, most elephants lost their mothers due to humans or lost their homes due to human evolution. This impacts my views on who has the bigger negative impact on human-wildlife interaction. This relates back to Ecoexist as it pushes my understanding of how elephants interact with each other, how they use their mental GPS on a daily basis and what their nature is. I discovered lots of knowledge I want to apply to my project regarding elephant mortality rates and the impact of their deaths on humans and elephants. Finally, this experience has shown me how human-wildlife cohabitation exists and is possible under the right conditions, trust can be built and efforts can be made on both sides.

I would like to start exploring the birth rate of elephants and the relationship between elephant families. This could also reinforce my summative through grasping a  bigger understanding of these elephants lives, which allows me to tell a better/different story. I have more questions on how human interaction works or even exists when elephants pass puberty. How conservation can be pushed a step further through coexistence. The visit has influenced my research in various ways, It has shaped my summative story and influences me to add more complex concepts such as environmental law and ethics into my final story. I want to implicate this excursion into my summative by exploring the perspectives of baby elephants when they coexist with humans and without.