Cuddling on the sofa with a pet is heartwarming—unless that pet is an elephant. Meet Moyo, a 14-month-old orphaned elephant living at the Zimbabwe Elephant Nursery, the country’s only sanctuary for baby elephants.
Rescued from the wild, where he was found lost, half-drowned, and separated from his herd, Moyo now thrives under the care of Roxy Danckwerts at the nursery.
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The sanctuary’s founder, Roxy, initially lets Moyo climb on the furniture. Now, Moyo explores more freely, munching on houseplants, raiding the kitchen with his trunk, and grabbing bread and fruit from countertops.
He even enjoys chewing on silver cutlery. “He’s quite the mischievous elephant,” Roxy says affectionately. “He’s outgrown the sofa now—I worry he might break it.” The BBC1 series “Nature’s Miracle Orphans,” hosted by zoologist and TV presenter Lucy Cooke, features Moyo and his surrogate mother.
The show captures moments like Moyo breaking into the pantry, tearing open a sack of powdered formula milk, and creating powder clouds around him. But Moyo’s playful antics are just a part of the larger challenge of preparing him for life in the wild. Roxy is dedicated to teaching Moyo essential elephant behaviors, such as rolling in sand baths and understanding social hierarchies.
Lucy Cooke highlights the round-the-clock care Moyo requires. “When Moyo first arrived, he was frail. We provide him with carefully balanced formula milk enriched with protein and porridge for malnourished children. He drinks up to 22 liters (five gallons) a day, and it can take up to ten years for an elephant to fully wean. But deep down, he’s just a little boy growing up.”
With nearly two decades of experience, Roxy took in Moyo, her first elephant, after being found stranded on Lake Kariba’s shores, near Zimbabwe’s border with Zambia, without a herd in sight.
Rescuers intervened when a pack of hyenas approached, bringing Moyo to Wild Is Life’s sanctuary near Harare with an elephant nursery. Initially weighing less than nine stone, Moyo should have weighed 14 stone at birth. Now, he has grown to a healthy 18 stone.
Roxy leads as the matriarch on walks, but Moyo sees himself as next in line. If Lucy walks before him, Moyo gently nudges her back into place with his trunk. To teach him social skills, Moyo is surrounded by friends: Josephine the dog, Sky the baby giraffe recovering from pneumonia, Noodles the gnu whose mother died during childbirth, and Pickles the warthog who believes she’s human.
Moyo’s closest companion is Kimi, an ideal friend due to the sheep’s strong herd instincts. Moyo also learns social lessons from four new arrivals, all older and more significant than him—part of a thriving elephant community that includes two-year-old Sizi and four-year-olds Kukurakura, Matabele, and Annabelle.
His most challenging lesson is swimming; elephants need to be confident in the water, but Moyo is terrified due to the trauma of nearly drowning as a newborn. To help him acclimate, a shallow pool has been specially dug so he can paddle safely.
In addition to the elephant nursery, Lucy encounters two lion cubs under the care of Leigh Anne Webb at Antelope Park, a conservation program near Wild Is Life. Lions face extinction in parts of Africa, and projects like this offer hope by hand-rearing young lions and teaching them survival skills before reintroducing them to the wild, reminiscent of Joy and George Adamson’s work with lioness Elsa in “Born Free.”
Brother and sister, Africa and Alika, are learning to hunt, starting with games similar to those played by cat lovers with kittens. Sanctuary staff craft waist-high models of giraffes and zebras from grass stalks filled with meat pieces. When the lions smell the scent, they adopt stealthy hunting tactics, with Alika launching a decisive attack that scatters grass and meat.
Initially weak upon arrival, Moyo receives carefully balanced formula milk with added protein and porridge designed for malnourished children. Although Alika makes the kill, Africa, the male, asserts dominance by choosing the juiciest morsels, mirroring wild pride dynamics.
After dining, the duo settles down for their favorite activity—napping. Lions, known to sleep up to 20 hours daily, exceed even sloths in their rest habits. While adorable, the orphan that most profoundly affects Lucy is a baby rhino left to die after poachers killed his mother, slashing his face.
Found with a gash over one eye near death, he was rescued and brought to the Care For Wild Africa rhino sanctuary near Kruger National Park. Rhino poa has become epidemic ching, especially during full moons that aren’t endemic. The sanctuary, led by Petronel Nieuwoudt, rehabilitates rhinos through gradual reintroduction into the wild, from nursing to social, zation, and ultimately release into a protected area.
Lucy describes the emotional release of the rhino orphans into the wild as a decisive moment where traumatized animals gain confidence and joyfully interact with their new environment. Witnessing these transformations brings tears to her eyes, underscoring the deep emotional connection and urgency of wildlife conservation efforts.
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