Last Decem­ber, a colla­bo­ra­tor from SOS Pri­ma­tes„ Encar Gar­cia, took 13.65 kg of work equip­ment dona­ted by the Zoo de Bar­ce­lo­na to the care­ta­kers of the Rete­ti Elephant Sanc­tuary Com­mu­nity Uni­ted for Elephants  and to Ol Peje­ta Con­ser­vancy, about which we recently also sha­red another ship­ment sent by a dif­fe­rent colleague.

Rete­ti Elephant Sanc­tuary is a cen­ter that shel­ters orpha­ned elephant cal­ves who have lost their mothers or, in some cases, may have been aban­do­ned. Usually, in both cases, the­re is some con­nec­tion with human acti­vi­ties (whether due to per­sis­tent drought or poa­ching, among other causes).

Their goal is always to return them to their family group, if pos­si­ble, and if not, as a last resort, to rai­se them and later relea­se them into areas near the sanc­tuary so they can join already esta­blished family groups. The cen­ter trains them for survival.

Encar Gar­cia is the direc­tor and co-foun­der of the Jaguar Res­cue Cen­ter https://www.jaguarrescue.foundation/, the most impor­tant res­cue, reha­bi­li­ta­tion, and relea­se cen­ter in Cos­ta Rica. She visi­ted Ken­ya through the agency @Dalia Adven­tu­res, mana­ged by our friend and collea­gue Jor­di Rovi­ra, who also hel­ped deli­ver the equip­ment to the men­tio­ned cen­ters. Jor­di is a jour­na­list and tra­vel gui­de spe­cia­li­zed in Afri­ca for the past 19 years and runs his own safa­ri com­pany in Ken­ya www.daliaadventures.com, whe­re he lives.

In the pho­tos, you can see some of the wor­kers at the moment of recei­ving the equip­ment. Many thanks to ever­yo­ne invol­ved (the Bar­ce­lo­na Zoo, Rete­ti, Ol Peje­ta, and espe­cially Encar, Mar­tí, and Jor­di), not for­get­ting the volun­teers at SOS Pri­ma­tes who work every day to help not only pri­ma­tes but all ani­mals selflessly.

if you tra­vel to any of the coun­tries whe­re the­re are pri­ma­te or other ani­mal cen­ters and want to help, do not hesi­ta­te to con­tact us so we can orga­ni­ze a ship­ment during your trip. If you want to know more about this pro­ject and colla­bo­ra­te with us, you can wri­te to info@sosprimates.org.

https://www.reteti.org/

https://www.olpejetaconservancy.org/