US Actress and wildlife campaigner Maggie Q (Nikita, Divergent, Designated Survivor) has been in Kenya with leading conservation charity The David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust (DSWT) on a mission to raise awareness of the threats facing elephants and efforts being made to protect them. Maggie Q has joined the DSWT to learn about Kenya’s elephants, with a focus on the orphaned baby elephants that are being hand reared by the DSWT until they can return to the wild when grown. Since 2007, more than 144,000 elephants have been killed for their ivory, bringing the continent wide population down to 400,000. Visiting the DSWT’s Elephant Nursery in Nairobi, Maggie met orphans of ivory poaching and human wildlife conflict as well as their dedicated carers who act as surrogate mothers and hand raise the infants, sleeping with them in their stables at night, and ensuring they never miss one of their three hourly milk feeds. “These are elephants who have been orphaned by US yet, they still allow us to be a part of their healing — and depend on one another for the same. These animals have come from terror, pain and loss but they just want to heal,” said Maggie. “It should matter to every one of us that we could wipe out a species in our lifetimes because of pure greed.”

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