At dawn above Nigeria's Okomu National Park, an exhausted wildlife ranger prepares formula for Agbaibor, an orphaned forest elephant calf just months after leaving the rainforest alone.<\/p>\n
\u00ab"The baby elephant should be given two liters of this feed per meal," said Joshua Aribasoye, one of those responsible for feeding and monitoring the baby elephant around the clock in a temporary enclosure at a ranger station inside the park in the southern state of Edo.<\/p>\n
Forest elephants, smaller and more elusive than their savannah relatives, are critically endangered, with their populations having declined sharply in recent decades largely due to habitat loss and poaching.<\/p>\n
Agbaybor, named after the ranger who helped rescue him, was found late last year near an oil palm plantation bordering a protected forest after becoming separated from his herd.<\/p>\n
Rangers and conservationists attempted to reunite the calf with its family by taking it back into the forest, but it soon escaped again.<\/p>\n
Fearing the elephant would die alone or be attacked, park officials and conservation group African Nature Investors (ANI) took emergency measures to care for the animal, bringing in elephant rehabilitators from Zambia and assigning caretakers to raise it.<\/p>\n
This has become an expensive operation. ANI spends between four and five million naira (approximately $2,900-$3,600) per month on his treatment, including 77 kilograms of powdered milk, as well as oats and nutritional supplements.<\/p>\n
Conservationists expect the rehabilitation process to take another three to five years. They are building a new enclosure deep within the park, in the elephant habitat, where the calf will gradually become accustomed to the sounds and movements of wild herds before eventually being released back into the wild.<\/p>\n
\u00ab"The calf will be cared for there... until it is included in the group," ANI project manager Peter Abanyam told ANI.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\u2014 200 left \u2014<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) lists forest elephants as a critically endangered species, and conservationists estimate there are only about 200 left in the country.<\/p>\n
Around 40 individuals are believed to live in and around Okomu, one of Nigeria's last remaining tropical forest ecosystems, covering approximately 24,000 hectares.<\/p>\n
\u00ab"Okomu is crucial for conservation in Nigeria," Abanyam said.<\/p>\n
\u00ab"In a small ecosystem like this, keeping 40 elephants is a huge number and must be protected at all costs.".<\/p>\n
But the pressure on the forest is increasing.<\/p>\n
Logging, poaching, agriculture and human settlement expansion have fragmented large parts of the reserve, reducing elephant corridors and increasing contact between wild animals and nearby settlements.<\/p>\n
Godsteim Christopher, 26, once helped remove illegally logged timber from the forest before being hired by ANI as a forester.<\/p>\n
Today, he works on the organization's biomonitoring team, using camera traps to track elephant movements and identify poachers.<\/p>\n
\u00ab"When I became a forester, I thought I could use it to master logging," he admitted. "But training changed our mentality.".<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\u2014 \u00abLet\u2019s preserve what we have\u00bb \u2014<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Conservation groups say engaging local communities is crucial to the survival of endangered wildlife in one of Africa's fastest-growing countries, where economic hardship often forces people deeper into protected forests in search of land, timber or bushmeat.<\/p>\n
While the conservation program appears to have helped reduce poaching in the area, hunting of other species continues to disturb elephants and degrade their habitat, Christopher warned.<\/p>\n
Back at the rehabilitation center, Agbaybor splashes in the mud, nudges his handler for attention, and drinks from large bottles of formula.<\/p>\n
For Aribasoye, this challenging work became deeply personal.<\/p>\n
\u00ab"We must be like a mother to him," he said.<\/p>\n
\u00ab"Seeing him eat and play is part of the joy\u2026 because I know we're working to preserve what we have left.".<\/p>\n
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