True Story of Nania: How A Baby Elephant Could Be Re-united With Her Mother

She was only 2-3 months old when the villagers of Boromo found her and it was a good thing too, because a baby motherless elephant does not survive alone in the wild.

She was dehydrated and thin.

Alone and lost.

The villagers rescued her and took her under their care.

They were puzzled as to what could have happened to her mother. There had been no news of an adult elephant dying nearby or being killed, so how had this baby lost her mother and also her herd? Normally, elephants are extremely caring and protective toward their young.

If baby elephants are found, they are in the worst situation of all - orphaned, alone, sitting by the carcass of their dead mother. Nothing worse can happen to a baby, human or otherwise. But this baby was not found next to her dead mother, so where was the mother and how did the baby and her mother get separated? No one knew. No one could figure it out either.

Nevertheless, the baby elephant was taken in... and to everyone's relief, she survived.

Children from a nearby school named her.

They called her 'Nania', meaning 'will'.

Will to live.

Will to survive.

The name had a sweet ring to it.

There wasn't time to reflect on her name, however. Urgent matters were at hand (or a bottle). To begin with, Nania was hungry. HUNGRY. So, the villagers had a problem - baby elephants drink gallons of milk in a day and... just how were they going to feed her?

There wasn't a whole lot of time to figure it out either.

Milk. Milk? Milk!!!

Folks pooled in money to buy milk for her. Powdered Infant Formula was donated by the big pharmacies. But it wasn't enough. A baby elephant drinks often and lot. They ran out almost the minute they thought they had enough. Nania would come running to them every hour.

Local wildlife authorities were notified, who reached out to international organizations and finally, the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) took on the responsibility for Nania.

It was the start of a long rescue and rehabilitation program for it wasn't simply milk that she needed. She needed affection. Hugs. Companionship. Training on how to be an elephant so that one day in the future, she could make her way back to the wild to live in a herd, perhaps even become a mom. In short everything a mother elephant would teach her youngster and what she would learn in her herd. All in all, about ten years of hard work for the rescue team.

The community rallied around Nania. School kids came to see her everyday... to interact and play. Nania chased them around. Folks became her surrogate 'mothers', who were there with her everyday - to protect her, comfort her, play and bathe with her, and roam in parks, so she could imprint the paths of a jungle in her mind and learn to navigate later for food and water. An elephant is a social animal. They live in herds - they take care of each other and help each other. They teach. They play. Form groups with strong bonds. Grieve for the dead.

Nania needed to know all of that... if she were to once again live in the wild.

Nania grew.

The rescuers began to think ahead. At some point, they wished that Nania would join a herd, but which herd? And how? The ideal was for Nania to meet a wild herd, like them enough to interact with them, and ultimate go with them. Normally, herd members are related, but not always. Sometimes, 20-25% of a herd are not related to anyone in the herd or in other words, they are (most likely) adopted. If the herd liked the orphan and the orphan liked the herd the rehabilitation could work. Herds are known to adopt orphans. It's a common occurrence.

The IFAW figured that they needed to find a herd - if possible the right herd.

One that might have Nania's real mother.

They began to collect elephant feces samples and send it in to Sam Wasser, a conservation biologist, all the way from Burkina Faso to University of Washington in Seattle, in the United States. And miracle of miracles, they found that there was almost a perfect DNA match from a feces sample. Nania's mother most likely. Apparently, the most likely mother elephant had deposited her dung only 650 feet from Nania's enclosure.

Nania's mother was still alive... and nearby!

If Nania could be reunited with her mother, it would highly increase her chances of survival. It wouldn't be simple or easy, however. The mother and daughter had been separate for years. Would they recognize each other? How would they react toward one another if they met?

Moreover, at this moment, Nania was scared of wild elephants and she would run if she saw them. One time, she (as well as her handler) were surrounded by wild elephants when out on a walk and even though they had trumpeted and communicated with each other, Nania had a diarrhea (i.e., physical reaction) when she had returned. Maybe she was anxious or terrified.

Here is the story in Celine Sissler-Bienvenu's (who is the Senior Program Officer at European Disaster Response and Risk Reduction, IFAW) words:

The day we had been dreaming about finally arrived: we received Nania’s DNA results. Is Nania’s family out there? Will we be able to reunite her with her herd—or even better, her mother? After three years of guessing, I finally held the report with the answers.

Nania was just three months old when she lost her herd and wandered into a village in Burkina Faso. She quickly won the affection of local community members, who generously pooled together funds to care for the calf until IFAW staff arrived for long-term support. Four caretakers named Idrissa, Souleymane, Salif and Abdoulaye took Nania under their wing, and together, we developed a specialized rehabilitation process that allows Nania to gradually develop independence.

Finding answers in unexpected places: dung collection

In spring 2020, our team began collecting dung samples from wild elephants travelling through Deux National Park. Setting up camera traps and hearing the footsteps of herds in the distance, we watched full of wonder as the herds passed by week after week. One of these elephants may be Nania’s mother. Not long after our initial sample gathering, COVID-19 hit and it seemed like the whole world was put on pause. We had no way of knowing what the future held, but our team all agreed on one thing: we couldn’t give up hope.

In October 2020, we were finally able to ship 17 test tubes to a conservation biology center at the University of Washington in Seattle. With hurdles like power outages and possible contamination, the scientific soundness of the DNA was uncertain. Nevertheless, we waited patiently, praying that the samples were good enough to produce a result.

Results of the DNA test

Four months later in February 2021, we finally received an answer about Nania’s lost family. I held the long-awaited DNA analysis report and read the opening sentence:

Our best inference is that Nania is the daughter of the elephant that produced dung sample 21.

My heart raced as I re-read the sentence over and over again. Nania’s mother was alive! The lab was able to analyze mitochondrial DNA from Nania and compare it to that found in the wild elephants’ dung. The report notes that there’s a small possibility that Elephant 21 is Nania’s half-sister, but more likely than not, she is truly her mother.

Checking the geographical data and collection date of sample 21, I realized that this elephant had passed within 200 meters of Nania's current home. The female had probably gone to the waterhole, a popular meeting place for the park's elephants. Maybe our camera traps had footage of her—was the beautiful night portrait that we recently captured Nania’s mother?

Nania, 100% forest elephant

The DNA analysis also confirmed a second key piece of information: Nania and her herd are forest elephants. The majority of forest elephants have long been thought to live in the Congo Basin in Central Africa, but Nania’s DNA results and similar research prove that the species’ range extends to the Sahel countries where they live alongside savannah elephants.

Long considered a subspecies, the forest elephant was finally recognized by the scientific community as a full species (Loxodonta cyclotis) in March 2021 with the status of “critically endangered”. With this new knowledge, the search for Nania’s family becomes a part of an even larger story. Nania carries hope for the survival of her species. Her release back into the wild and reunion with her herd holds the potential for more genetic diversity and stronger populations of wild forest elephants.

With the good news of a DNA match, we decided that it is time to allow Nania to venture out at nightfall and explore her surroundings until midnight. Interactions with wild elephants are vital for Nania’s confidence and her assimilation back into the wild. We, her surrogate family, will continue to guide her back towards her own kind, because at IFAW we know that one animal can make all the difference.

- Céline Sissler-Bienvenu, IFAW Director France & Francophone Africa

Read the rest of the details here.

On Instagram IFAW, you will see amazing videos of Nania.

If that doesn't put a smile on our faces, I don't know what will.

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