Daphne Sheldrick
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Dame Daphne Jenkins Sheldrick, DBE (b. 4 June 1934, Kenya) is an author, conservationist and expert in animal husbandry, particularly the raising and reintegrating of orphaned elephants into the wild for over 30 years.
Daphne Jenkins was educated at Nakuru Primary School and the Kenya High School where she matriculated in 1950 with Honours and the possibility of a bursary to attend university; however she opted for marriage.
From 1955 until 1976 Sheldrick was a co-warden of Kenya's Tsavo National Park with her late husband, David Sheldrick (MBE). During that time she raised and rehabilitated back into the wild community orphans of misfortune from many different wild species, including elephants, black rhinos, buffalo, zebras, elands, kudus, impalas, duikers, reedbuck, dikdiks, warthogs, civets, mongeese and birds.
She is a recognized authority on the rearing of wild creatures and is the first person to have perfected the milk formula and necessary husbandry for both infant milk-dependent elephants and rhinos.
[edit] Honours
For her work in this field Daphne Sheldrick was decorated by the Queen in 1989 with an MBE, elevated to UNEP's Global 500 Roll of Honour in 1992, among the first 500 people worldwide to have been accorded this particular honour, and awarded an Honorary Doctorate in Veterinary Medicine and Surgery by Glasgow University in June 2000.
In December 2001 her work was honoured by the Kenya Government through a prestigious decoration - a Moran of the Burning Spear (MBS), and in 2002 by the BBC when she received their Lifetime Achievement Award. In the November 2005 issue of the Smithsonian Magazine Daphne Sheldrick was named as one of 35 people worldwide who have made a difference in terms of animal husbandry and wildlife conservation.
In the 2006 New Year’s Honours List, Queen Elizabeth II appointed Dr. Sheldrick a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire, the first knighthood to be awarded in Kenya since the country received Independence in 1963.
