The Elephant Orphanage

A Place Where Baby Elephants Find "Surrogate Mothers"

(CBS) 
Meeting these older elephants is far different from mixing with the babies back at the orphanage.

Those little 'kids' may bump you around if they don't like you, but the elephants in the national park are big. They may only be teenagers, but they’ve grown. Not only that, they hang out with elephants in the wild. They’re in the process of becoming wild. So the time for cuddling is over.

One day, each elephant just wanders off into the wild and stays there. It is not at the prompting of anyone in the orphanage. There is no graduation ceremony. It is whenever an elephant feels that he is ready to go back where he belongs.

Back at the nursery, Ndololo, the little blind elephant, was doing well and was being taught to follow the sound of a stick that’s banged on the ground by a seeing-eye man. He was getting spoiled rotten. He got more than just dust to protect his ears from the sun: he got sunscreen.

He also was seeing an ophthalmologist, who had wonderful news: Ndololo was getting some of his sight back.

But the doctor had another call to make. One of the elephants was not doing well at all and had been on antibiotics for two days. He could barely breathe.

His room looked like an intensive care unit. The doctor, Daphne and the keepers didn't leave him for a minute, doing everything they could. But it wasn't enough. By dawn, the elephant had died.

"How do you manage going through this all the time?" Simon asked Daphne.

"Well, you don't have much option, do you? There's another one to look after, and then another one coming and, you know, you just have to turn the page," she replied.

She admits she gets quite attached to the elephants — and says turning that page is not easy.

"But, then, you go and you hang out with the orphans who are doing so well and it's, brings joy to your life," Simon asked.

"Absolutely," she said.

What brings particular joy to Daphne is that many of those who made it through nursery, who made it though junior high school and who’ve gone back to the wild come back to visit.

One elephant, Emily, is 12 years old now. She was the matriarch here but left the school two years ago. She comes back whenever she feels like seeing her old friends, the elephants and the keepers, and getting a tasty treat of ground-up coconut.

The keeper here wants to make sure we understand that while she’s friendly, she’s wild.

"What's she doing? Checking us out?" Simon asked, with a nervous chuckle.

"She's, you know, she's, let's move back. Let's move back. We have to move back. We have to move," the keeper instructed.

The keeper and the 60 Minutes team kept moving until Emily let them know that she was ready to take a meeting.

"So now Emily and I are OK?" Simon asked.

"Yeah," the keeper replied.

"Good. Emily, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship," Simon joked.

The day 60 Minutes left the orphanage, there was terrible news. Ndololo, the little blind elephant, had died. He just keeled over and died. Daphne and the keepers were devastated, the elephants were devastated. But the cycle keeps turning. Two elephants have since arrived at the orphanage — and they are doing just fine.