A juvenile elephant in a zoo or wildlife sanctuary enclosure surrounded by a wooden fence and sandy ground with trees and hills under clear skies on a sunny day during spring or summer. 19:42
HERD Elephant Orphanage South Africa channel icon HERD Elephant Orphanage South AfricaOriginal creator 300K views Save

The carer who raised baby elephant Khanyisa

Khanyisa came to the HERD elephant orphanage in South Africa as a small orphaned calf with a hard start ahead of her. A carer named Reply stayed with her through all of it. more

In those first months she drank from a bottle, and a lot of the feeding fell to Reply, a man in a hat. Longtime followers still remember how sick she was then and how worried they were that she might not pull through.

She got stronger, and she got curious. By a wooden fence she stands close beside Reply with her trunk curled his way. One fan still laughs at how hard she once worked to figure out what that trunk was and why it was there.

A small elephant stands near a wooden fence with her trunk curled toward a person beside her. A headline runs in white letters across the lower third.Save
Stronger and curious now, Khanyisa stands near Reply by the fence.

The care added up. HERD put together this look back ahead of her fourth birthday, and it runs from the bottle days to a big pink girl with a playful streak. The people who watched her grow up all land on the same words. She has come a long way.

A juvenile elephant in a zoo or wildlife sanctuary enclosure surrounded by a wooden fence and sandy ground with trees and hills under clear skies on a sunny day during spring or summer. The headline runs in white letters across the lower third.Save
Khanyisa came to the HERD elephant orphanage in South Africa as a small orphaned calf with a hard start ahead of her.

Out in the dry grass the two still walk together, Reply in his hat and mask and Khanyisa close beside him, much bigger now than the calf with the bottle. One fan calls the carers elephant readers, people who walk so casually among giants.

An elephant walks beside a person in a hat and mask, with dry grass and power lines behind them. A headline runs in white letters across the lower third.Save
Much bigger now, Khanyisa still walks beside her carer through the dry grass.

Reply gets a lot of the credit, and he has earned it. Followers thank him for his patience and for years of hard work, and one calls him a gentle giant in his own right. Another, half joking, says the man deserves a raise.

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