I received sad news this morning from Angela Sheldrick that Mweiga, a very special nine year old female elephant orphan who has lived with a heart problem all her life, died suddenly at the Voi stockade.
"With tears streaming I have this very sad news. Mweiga, with an almost full moon rising behind her, climbed the hill back to the stockades for the last time with Burra by her side yesterday evening. She collapsed a few hundred yards from the stockades and died shortly afterwards.
We are all heartbroken to loose such a beautiful elephant who we have loved and nurtured for 9 years. As you can imagine the Keepers are devastated and are at a complete loss too. Burra was extremely frightened by the whole event and rushed back down the hill to join some of the others who were browsing at the bottom of the hill by the waterhole.
We are all still in shock, despite somewhere in the back of our minds knowing that Mweiga was never going to make old bones it is nevertheless extremely hard when faced with her sudden end.
We are so grateful to all those of you who have donated so generously towards Mweiga's care, and I guess we can all reassure ourselves that we at least enabled her to have 9 years of life, longer than we ever initially anticipated, and they were 9 very happy years, filled with love from her elephant family and a dedicated team of Keepers."
This will be hard on all the humans left behind as well as the other orphans in Voi who knew and loved Mweiga. The orphans understood that she was not well. Though most of them are now living free in Tsavo and no longer in the stockades, somehow amongst themselves, they arranged that one of them would always be with Mweiga on their walks, mudbaths and overnight in the stockade. She was always with another elephant who cared deeply about her.
She will be missed by so many, humans and elephants alike.
Rest in peace Mweiga
