{"id":170739,"date":"2025-09-26T14:04:11","date_gmt":"2025-09-26T14:04:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/170739\/"},"modified":"2025-09-26T14:04:11","modified_gmt":"2025-09-26T14:04:11","slug":"baby-elephant-was-all-alone-until-he-fell-in-love-with-an-orphaned-buffalo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/170739\/","title":{"rendered":"Baby Elephant Was All Alone Until He Fell In Love With An Orphaned Buffalo"},"content":{"rendered":"

Every morning, Kimani the elephant and Siilai the buffalo go for a walk together in central Kenya. They wrestle and nap on each other. In fact, they\u2019ve developed a daily routine that ensures they get to spend as much time together as possible.<\/p>\n

Reteti Elephant Sanctuary<\/p>\n

Back in February, Kimani fell into a well and got stuck. Rescuers successfully pulled him out, unscathed, but were unable to track his mother or herd. They brought him to Reteti Elephant Sanctuary<\/a> for care, food and shelter.<\/p>\n

Two weeks later, Siilai turned up in the Kirisia Forest, just east of the sanctuary. Only a week old, locals worried he wouldn\u2019t make it in the wild alone and called the Reteti Elephant Sanctuary for help.<\/p>\n

When Siilai arrived at the facility, he and Kimani clicked immediately.<\/p>\n

Reteti Elephant Sanctuary<\/p>\n

\u201cAt that time, we didn\u2019t have any other baby elephants the same age as Kimani,\u201d Katie Rowe, cofounder of Reteti Elephant Sanctuary, told The Dodo. \u201cSo, these two babies found each other at Reteti. Suddenly there was someone else to play with.\u201d<\/p>\n

After months of friendship, the pair\u2019s routine includes sunrise strolls, mud baths from their favorite caretakers \u2014 who are all Indigenous Samburu warriors \u2014 and giant bottles of milk every three hours.<\/p>\n

Reteti Elephant Sanctuary<\/p>\n

Rowe said more often than not, Kimani will initiate playtime with Siilai, nudging his friend with his trunk. The two roll around in the dirt, wrestling between meals and naps.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey lovingly play together,\u201d Rowe said. \u201cThen they\u2019ll go into a deep sleep knowing that they have each other.\u201d<\/p>\n

Reteti Elephant Sanctuary<\/p>\n

The goal at Reteti Elephant Sanctuary is always to release residents back into the wild. Though elephants and buffaloes don\u2019t typically eat, sleep and play together outside of rescue settings, there\u2019s always the possibility that Kimani and Siilai will continue their friendship beyond the sanctuary\u2019s borders.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey seek each other\u2019s love and friendship,\u201d Rowe said. \u201cThey\u2019re real beacons of co-existence.\u201d<\/p>\n

If you\u2019d like to support Kimani and Siilai\u2019s recovery journey, you can donate via Reteti Elephant Sanctuary\u2019s website<\/a>.\"Butterflies<\/a>Butterflies With Broken Wings Experience ‘Flying’ With Some Help From A GardnerThey flapped their wings and felt the breeze \ud83e\udd79<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Every morning, Kimani the elephant and Siilai the buffalo go for a walk together in central Kenya. They…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":170740,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[49,48,6586,8014,66,2225,6584,323],"class_list":{"0":"post-170739","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wildlife","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-daily-dodo","11":"tag-sarah-ashley","12":"tag-science","13":"tag-standard","14":"tag-the-dodo","15":"tag-wildlife"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/170739","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=170739"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/170739\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/170740"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=170739"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=170739"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=170739"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}