A Sad Day as Little Fighter, Phabeni Passes Away at 11 Months Old

1 July

We are devastated to have to share this news with you today. Little Phabeni has passed away in our care, following a seven-month battle of ups and downs with his health. We have shared the story of this devastating loss below, with a video put together with care and love, and great respect for the little bull, and the people and elephants who loved him.

By Adine Roode

We were thinking of ways to celebrate Phabeni’s one year in July. Little did we know that he would never reach his first birthday.

For the past seven months, it has been an up-and-down struggle with Phabeni, gaining weight, losing weight, taking bottles, leaving bottles.

For the last week, Phabeni skipped either his 8, 10, 12 or 2 o’clock bottle. Sometimes it was one bottle, sometimes it was two bottles. It was either 10 or 20% of his daily intake that he did not take.

I noticed that his energy levels were not good at all and he was listless. He had puffiness in his face. I contacted Katie Rowe from Reteti for advice, as Phabeni had been on goat milk for just more than a month, and he took to it well, but he did not gain as much weight as I thought he would have, and as he needed. At least he was taking his bottles. I thought it would take some time for him to put on weight as his digestive system needed to adapt to the new milk. I checked with the pediatrician who said it would take quite a bit of time. After about two and a half weeks he started gaining weight, however he never reached 170 kgs.

I asked Dr. Rogers to give him a vitamin booster and vitamin B12 to increase his appetite. Dr. Rogers suggested that we give it intravenously to reduce the stress of darting him, so we put Phabeni on a drip for this. Even though it was mild, he perhaps did not take the sedation too well as his front legs battled to hold his weight so I laid down and he rested on my legs, with his full weight. We gave him 3 bags of fluids plus a good dose of vitamins and minerals. We wrapped up just after 4 pm and he took his 4 pm milk bottle without any problems. At 6 pm he also finished the bottle easily, as well as the 9 o’clock bottle.

Just before 11 pm, I had gone to my home in the reserve, and heard Ruan from Jabulani lodge knocking on my window to tell me that the carers needed me as Phabeni was not doing well. The signal was not great, and they couldn’t get hold of me. I rushed up to the orphanage and saw Phabeni swinging from side to side, unstable on his feet. I sent Dr. Rogers video footage of this and called him just before midnight. He answered immediately and asked if he should come out. I confirmed that I thought it was needed. It felt like ages before he arrived. Time stood still.

Joshua, Godknows, Last, Liverson and Stavros were all at the orphanage not knowing what to do. I couldn’t think of anything Dr Rogers could do but I needed him to come, maybe even just for moral support and to experience what we were experiencing. Stavros and Liverson were with Phabeni and I watched them closely. I realised that Phabeni did not have the energy to even stagger anymore. I suggested that we try his midnight bottle at 11:30 pm, which he didn’t take. However, he did lift his head high in the air with his trunk folded upwards, backward and opened his mouth as if to get milk. He would shake his head as if there was something in his throat he wanted to get rid of. I was scared he might choke on the milk and suggested to Stavros that we quit the milk. I went in and got Phabeni to lie down, he laid down on his chest with his legs straight out and his hind legs folded under him. Dr. Rogers came and suggested we try to give him a bottle again, as he said he must drink. Once again, he wasn’t interested but did lift his head, and staggered around.

I got him to lie down, and he fell asleep. Minutes ticked by, and it sometimes felt as if he couldn’t breathe and as though he was afraid that he couldn’t get air in. I think it might have been anxiety and overwhelm. So I counted with him, we did breathing exercises, breathing in and out, in, out. When he breathed in, I blew into his trunk and as he blew out, I smelled his breath. It was as though I could smell his fear, but we were with him and he would ease his breathing pace. It calmed him. He got up for few more times and staggered around in the nursery, chasing Lammie and Spotty, or sometimes Stavros or myself. We got him to lie down once again with Stavros’ hand on his eyes and lying behind him, cuddling him and making soothing sounds, and me lying on the other side, helping him to breathe when he battled. He screamed a few times. But in the end, he fell asleep.

I fetched a warm blanket for Stavros and a cushion as it was getting chilly and I wrapped another blanket over Phabeni without waking him. By 3 am it was freezing cold and I got up to get the last small crocheted blanket to cover myself. By 5 am I told Stavros I would go and make us some coffee.

Godknows came by to check on us, and when I arrived with the coffee, he came out from Phabeni and said, “Phabeni is still sleeping.” We chatted about the plan for the day, saying that we would not take Phabeni out to the bush with the other elephants. It was during this stage, with a sleeping Phabeni and a cuddled-up Stavros, that Stavros then came out to speak to me and told me that Phabeni was dead. I couldn’t believe it. Godknows and I rushed in to find Phabeni not breathing, just still and warm. It was 5:43 am.

In the distance, the sun was coming up. I had been thinking while making coffee that I was glad this night was over, as it was a long, long night. I had been thinking that Phabeni had survived and pulled through, but I was wondering what the next night might hold for us. During the night, to calm Phabeni, we played classical music. It really helped him to calm down and the three of us just lay listening to the music or maybe Stavros and I were listening to Phabeni breathing, in and out, quite hard, sometimes battling. I fetched my phone to find a message from Dr. Rogers: “Update please,” it said. I sent him a reply: “We just lost him”.

Dr. Rogers joined us at the orphanage to carry out an autopsy. It is a hard process to go through, especially with an animal you have cared for and come to know and love. It was hard on the team, but the results showed acute enteritis. While this could have been caused by something that Phabeni ate, there were multiple challenges that Phabeni was already facing for several weeks. His body was continuing to go through bouts of infection, which we would treat and help clear through antibiotics. The cause of the infection was not removed and so the infection continued to return. If this was due to the broken bone in his hip, caused by the dart used to tranquilise him during his rescue, Phabeni was never strong enough for us to perform the operation to remove the broken bone.

On top of this, he cut his first tusk the week before he passed away, and his second tusk was swollen and red, ready to erupt. I know that during this stage of teething, we have battled every time with the orphan calves and statistics show that most babies are lost during this teething period.

He was certainly fussy regarding taste when it came to milk and food, which did not help matters as he needed a lot more nutrition than what he was taking in. It is hard to tell with elephant calves what the precise cause of death could be, as not much research and experience exists in terms of their species, compared to horses or rhinos, for example. For all we know, Phabeni could have had something wrong with his stomach at the very beginning when he was rescued, and perhaps that could explain why he did not allow us to touch him on certain areas around his stomach, and why he was extra feisty at times.

We gained so much insight through caring for Phabeni and the herd grew immensely having him join their family. It is heartbreaking for all of us on the ground, myself, his carers who were with him day after day, in the orphanage and in the bush with the elephants. It is heartbreaking for our team who work tirelessly to procure milk and medicine, food and other essentials for Phabeni in our head office, and our team working to share his stories, videos, blogs, posts and newsletters with our followers and supporters. It is heartbreaking for our fundraising team who put in so much work to help get Phabeni the care he needed. But we know that it is also deeply tragic and distressing for you too, you who have followed the little bull’s story from day one, found inspiration in his journey, and fallen in love with his spirit, big eyes and floppy little trunk.

Similarly, it will be a big challenge for the herd, for adoptive mother Setombe especially, to accept and come to terms with not seeing Phabeni anymore. Perhaps not understanding what happened to him. During Phabeni’s last night, several of the elephants gathered at the fence. We could see they knew something was wrong. Perhaps they heard Phabeni’s screams. Smelt his fear as he struggled to breathe. Setombe let out her own screams in the homestead and our hearts ached for her.

It will take time to heal from this. But it comes with the territory of trying to rescue, rehabilitate and raise elephant orphans who have lost their natural families. It is part of the journey of elephant conservation, dealing with loss. With hardship. Elephant orphan calves are all extremely fragile and getting them to a safe, strong age where they are hardier takes a lot of luck, trial and error, constant dedication and care. Phabeni was lucky in that he was able to find support from his own species again, and the imprint he leaves on the herd is obvious. He changed Setombe for the better, as the older female opened her heart to a calf who was not her own. Setombe showed immense strength of character and a deep nurturing nature, a fierceness, as she took Phabeni in almost immediately. Even Khanyisa, the youngest in the herd again, bonded with Phabeni, the littlest elephant she had ever met up close. She showed such genuine acceptance and kindness towards Phabeni that truly made us proud and showed that hers is a special heart.

We truly tried everything to help Phabeni over the months when his health battled. We leant on every contact, expert, friend, advisor and supporter that we could to create solutions to the different problems that Phabeni faced. Together, we all gave him the very best chance in life, but it simply was not enough. His little heart will stay with us eternally. Thank you for loving him like we did, for learning from him like we did, and for letting his life matter.