Born Free Foundation - Keep Wildlife in the Wild

Successful rescue and rehabilitation back to the wild

For 27 years Nina the elephant lived in a private zoo in Kenya. Then in 1998 her owner approached Born Free. Nina was clearly frustrated by captivity and longed for companions of her own kind.  It is incredibly difficult to move an elephant and most people thought it would be impossible to return an elephant captive for so many years to the wild. But Born Free was determined to prove them wrong, assembling a team of experts and inviting the BBC to film the move for their popular ‘Born to be Wild’ TV series.

With the help of Born Free patron Martin Clunes the carefully planned move went ahead, with Nina's welfare the top priority.  She was driven through Kenya and across the border to Tanzania in Born Free’s special elephant relocation truck, donated to the Kenya Wildlife Service. She gradually got used to her new surroundings and for the first time could hear sounds of the wild including other elephants. 

Then the boma door was opened and, 10 weeks after she arrived, Nina took her first steps to freedom.  Nina’s story caught the public imagination and 13 million BBC viewers delighted in her success.

Over the years she adapted well to the wild, learning to forage for food and only occasionally returning to her release camp for water and a banana.  Her tusks grew and she became big and strong, linking up with different groups of wild elephants. Then in November 2003 Born Free received wonderful news. Nina had a male calf, light-heartedly named Johnny Wilkinson as he appeared on the day that England won the Rugby World Cup. 

Sadly, in October 2007, Nina died.  She had been seen looking slightly out of sorts and the next day her body was found about 1 km from the area where she had been released.  She had died in labour and the autopsy showed that the calf being round the wrong way was the cause of her death. This is a tragic but not especially rare condition which has been known to cause fatality in otherwise healthy wild elephants.

Obviously this is enormously sad but, as with so many wildlife stories, we must look for the positives, and there are many.  Nina had ten years living the life of a wild elephant – that is about a third of her entire life; she successfully gave birth to her male calf, who is fully weaned, very healthy and has been seen with a bachelor group of males; her story proves that after 20 years in a zoo an elephant can go back to the wild relatively easily and that this could be a solution for other elephants; I am sure that Nina’s story, filmed by the BBC for Born to the Wild and presented by Martin Clunes, helped put Mkomazi (her wild home in Tanzania) on the map and, in the last few years, what was a national reserve has now been reclassified as a national park, giving its long-term protected status additional security.

Born Free is very proud of its involvement in Nina’s translocation. We put a lot of effort into raising funds and solving logistic problems in order to prove that this could be done and, most importantly, in order to make a huge difference to the quality of life of a wild animal.