Episode 61: Settling in- Kenya's first month at sanctuary

Summary

Global Rumblings Podcast

Episode 61: Settling In – Kenya's First Month at Sanctuary
Global Sanctuary for Elephants | Hosted by Nadia Mari
Release Date: September 2, 2025

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Episode Overview

In this heartwarming and insightful episode, co-founders Kat and Scott Blais join host Nadia Mari to reflect on Kenya’s first month at Elephant Sanctuary Brazil. Their candid conversation sheds light on how Kenya, an African elephant recently rehomed after decades in captivity, is acclimating to her new environment—exploring, playing, forming tentative social connections (especially with neighbor Pupi), and even shaking up the local tree population. The discussion ranges from the elephants' individual personalities and behaviors to the practicalities of habitat management, all told with humor and deep empathy for their charges.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Weather and Setting the Scene

• The sanctuary is currently in the dry season in Mato Grosso, Brazil, but conditions are greener than usual thanks to an unexpected rain shower.
• The local climate influences both elephant behavior and staff routines, especially regarding fire prevention.
  • Kat: “The wind is still cool. Fortunately, it hasn't turned to the hot drying air that promotes so many fires. So, so far, so good.” [01:42]

2. Kenya’s Tree Adventures and Exploits

• Kenya has transitioned from a cautious “polite wanderer” to a “bold explorer.”
• She’s enthusiastically knocking down trees, sometimes just for fun, not always for food.
  • Kat: “She just had A little silly fit. And she started making her little weird trumpet noises, almost like a foghorn… and she ran over and went to go knock down a tree, a big tree. I'm like, no, no, no, no, no.” [02:30]
• Discussion about how individual elephants vary in their reasons for knocking over trees; for Kenya, it’s part of exploring newfound freedom after 40 years without access to trees.

Other Elephants and Their Tree Tactics

• Maya, Nikita, and Gigi are mentioned as notorious tree toppers as well, with Gigi known for her solo “partying” sessions that involve lots of noise and tree knocking.
  • Scott: “And she just. She'll do it for, like, 20 minutes, 30 minutes. We can hear her up at the house, clear as day.” [04:20]

3. Mud Wallows: Club Mud & Elephant Engineering

• Kenya enjoys Club Mud, the main mud wallow in the African habitat, and like other elephants, starts new unofficial mud wallows throughout the sanctuary.
• The podcast humorously references the “landmines” (mud pits) elephants create, sometimes making vehicular passage tricky, drawing on similar experiences from their Tennessee sanctuary.
  • Scott: “They make all these landmines all over the habitat. Same way in Tennessee, you can't drive anywhere ... all these giant holes that they make so that they can play in them.” [06:46]

4. Kenya and Pupi: Budding Social Dynamics

• Kenya and her neighbor Pupi (another African elephant) are gradually getting acquainted, separated by a fence for now since Pupi is more reserved.
• Both elephants are described as gentle and cautious in their greetings, contrary to the often more forceful displays of African elephants.
  • Kat: “For as big a personality as Kenya is, she's being remarkably delicate with all of it.” [12:04]
• Pupi sometimes engages and is vocal, but physical interaction remains pending. The team is intentionally taking it slow to avoid stress or negative encounters for either elephant.
  • Scott: “We don't want to create a chase scenario ... she's not ready, we don't want her to feel like she has to run away.” [12:24]

5. Sanctuary Life & Elephant Behavior

• Kenya displays a range of expressive, often playful, behaviors:
  • “Foghorn” trumpeting, “pterodactyl” noises, tap dancing, trunk popping, and even patting the ground with her trunk.
  • Kat: “She does so smiling and popping and tap dancing and rumbling and foghorning and pterodactyl noises. So many noises.” [08:06]
• Kenya is described as “childlike”—despite being 44 years old, she’s embracing her environment like a kid set loose in a playground.
• Notably, Kenya has shown maturation since her arrival, with greater emotional balance and no longer taking offense during medical training or touch, which was an issue in her zoo days.

6. Personalities in Contrast: Kenya vs. Pupi

• While both elephants exhibit classic African elephant behaviors (exploring, grazing, mud wallowing), their personalities and adjustment journeys are starkly different.
  • Scott: “They are so different. So different in pretty much almost every way.” [13:53]
• Kenya spent many years alone before rescue, while Pupi had long been half of a pair (“Kooky and Pupi”) and is still adjusting to independence.
• Kenya is emotionally open, expressive, and sometimes reactive, while Pupi is introverted and more reserved. The team hopes, over time, their personalities might balance each other.
  • Scott: “How emotional she is is one of the most beautiful things about her for sure. But ... we thought they might in the long term ... both be able to balance that out in each other.” [15:15]

7. Favorite Spots and Habitat Regeneration

• Neither elephant has definitively claimed a “favorite" spot after only a month; the sanctuary habitats (about 12 acres, divided into three enclosures) are still being explored fully.
• Staff have protected some old-growth trees with fencing, but Kenya is otherwise free to reshape her landscape.
• The habitat was mostly pasture before the sanctuary began, and has rapidly reforested thanks to natural regeneration—staff note that planting saplings provides little advantage compared to how fast the habitat bounces back on its own.
  • Kat: “This habitat will regenerate very, very, very, very, very quickly on its own. The whole area that they were in was full pasture when we arrived.” [21:04]

8. Expansion & Future Plans

• The sanctuary is actively expanding:
  • Fencing for a new yard is underway, and the male transport crate is complete.
  • Fire control measures are being upgraded, with new sprinkler systems planned to defend against seasonal fires.
• The team is working short-staffed but motivated, with new hires joining soon.

9. Feeding Preferences and Fun Facts

• Kenya is picky—she dislikes pineapple and papaya. Pupi, on the other hand, “literally likes everything.”
• Watermelon and popcorn (for training) are favored by both, and guava will be trialed soon.
• Staff recall the intense dislike for papaya among their former Tennessee elephants, with humorous stories about food preferences.
  • Kat: “The look on her face of this. Disgusting. And just couldn’t stop herself from eating it because she was wonderful.” [22:58]

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “She does so smiling and popping and tap dancing and rumbling and foghorning and pterodactyl noises. So many noises.” —Kat [08:06]
• “They make all these landmines all over the habitat. Same way in Tennessee, you can’t drive anywhere ... all these giant holes that they make so that they can play in them.” —Scott [06:46]
• "For as big a personality as Kenya is, she's being remarkably delicate with all of it." —Kat [12:04]
• "How emotional she is is one of the most beautiful things about her for sure. But, you know, it is again, there's a balance to everything." —Scott [15:15]
• “This habitat will regenerate very, very, very, very, very quickly on its own.” —Kat [21:04]
• "She is definitely enjoying herself and her new space and her new friend. Even if they're not best friends yet, she doesn't care. It's still great." —Scott [10:33]

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• Kenya the Tree-Knocker: [02:18–03:58]
• Mud Wallows & Elephant Engineering: [05:07–07:20]
• Kenya & Pupi's Social Progress: [10:54–13:17]
• Personalities & Contrasts: [13:53–16:06]
• Habitat and Expansion Update: [17:48–20:51]
• Feeding Preferences & Fun Facts: [22:00–23:02]

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Takeaways

• Sanctuary life is a continuous journey for both elephants and caregivers, requiring attentiveness, flexibility, patience, and a sense of humor.
• Kenya’s growing confidence and expressive behaviors symbolize the kind of healing possible when elephants are given space, autonomy, and respect.
• Each elephant’s journey is unique—personality, past experiences, and social history all shape their adaptation in sanctuary.
• The entire sanctuary ecology (from tree regeneration to fire management) is intimately tied to the elephants’ wellbeing and the staff’s dedicated, innovative efforts.

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For regular updates, listeners can follow GSE on their website and social media channels.

Transcript

[Kat]

Foreign.

[Nadia Mari]

Hello and welcome to Global Sanctuary for Elephants podcast. Global Rumblings. Global Sanctuary for Elephants, or GSE for short, is a non profit organization with a mission to create vast, safe spaces for captive elephants where they are able to heal physically and emotionally, emotionally, often from very traumatic pasts. I'm your host, Nadia Mari, and I'll be taking you to the lush jungle of the Mato Grosso region in central Brazil, home of GSE's initial project, Elephant Sanctuary Brazil, where Asian and African elephants, lovingly referred to as the Girls, live their best lives.

[Nadja]

Hello, everyone. Welcome back to a new episode of Global Rumblings. It's great to have you with us again today. Today we'll be talking more about Kenya and her first month at the sanctuary, checking in on the trees and finding out if she's made friends with Pupi yet. But first of all, let's head over to Brazil to say hi to Kat and Scott. Hi, you two.

[Scott]

Hey, Nadja.

[Kat]

Hey, Nadja. How are you?

[Nadja]

I'm fine, thank you. Enjoying the warm weather now here in Germany, at least at my end of the woods, where I live in Germany, we had lots of rain and 20 degrees. So now it's sunny and 28.

[Kat]

Toasty warm.

[Nadja]

Yeah. 28. You're coming out of dry season now, aren't you?

[Kat]

Oh, we are still. Well, in dry season. We still have a couple months left. Oh, yeah, yeah.

[Scott]

But it rained like a week ago.

[Kat]

No. Yeah, we had a little bit of rain a week ago. I mean, not much here, but a little bit further away got. They got a fair bit of rain, which is really atypical. Things are still nice and green. The wind is still cool. Fortunately, it hasn't turned to the hot drying air that promotes so many fires. So, so far, so good. Knock on wood.

[Scott]

That's a crazy dry season so far. In a good way.

[Kat]

So there's lots of trees that have lots of green leaves everywhere, except for those that Kenya has knocked down.

[Nadja]

I read on a video today that's really sweet. A caption on X you'd written that Kenya has gone from a polite wanderer to a bold explorer. So how are the trees? The ones that are still standing?

[Kat]

Well, in your intro, when you said we can check on how the trees are doing made me chuckle and almost cry.

[Scott]

They're fainting. We don't know what happened to them, but they are fainting. They're just up and passing out.

[Kat]

Yesterday everywhere I was by the. I was taking care of them yesterday and the guys were doing some work close by and she just had A little silly fit. And she started making her little weird trumpet noises, almost like a foghorn. I was listening to it yesterday, maybe a little bit foghorn, like, it's like, what are you doing? And she ran over and went to go knock down a tree, a big tree. I'm like, no, no, no, no, no. And she stopped and looked at it, and I was like, you have knocked down so many. You're not even eating them. And she just stand there, looked at a tree, and then she walked past it.

[Nadja]

So you said she knocked it down and didn't eat it? I was just going to say or ask. Why did elephants knock down trees? Obviously not just for the fun of it or.

[Kat]

Well, that depends on the individual. That depends on the moment. Depends on the individual. Depends on.

[Scott]

Listen, she's got 40 years to get to a pond where she hasn't been able to touch a tree. So.

[Kat]

Yeah. In Tennessee, I remember Jenny, who was the second elephant that arrived there. I mean, she went into the forest just past the barn, and we're like, oh, if this keeps happening where we have, like. And she was an Asian, we're allowed four elephants. I mean, she was knocking big trees down, like, what are you doing? Just ravishing this one little valley. And then she stopped. You know, just never. Never really did much of it again. Little ones she did, but none of the big ones. But Kenya is definitely experiencing or. Or exploring her force.

[Scott]

Mayo is a big tree knocker downer. I'm just making up words now.

[Kat]

No, she did. Maya would knock down. She definitely did all the palm trees.

[Scott]

Yes. Nikita got to eat all the palm nuts. So it was a good friendship. And Gigi's not gentle on trees either.

[Kat]

I'm sorry.

[Scott]

Gigi, she's the other one who she doesn't want.

[Kat]

She's partying.

[Scott]

Yeah.

[Kat]

No alcohol involved. She just goes running around knocking down trees.

[Scott]

I'm making lots of noises. She has continued. Ladies, party of one.

[Nadja]

Oh.

[Scott]

And she just. She'll do it for, like, 20 minutes, 30 minutes. We can hear her up at the house, clear as day. And she just makes noises, noises, noises, noises, noises. And then you hear a crack, and it's like, oh.

[Nadja]

So we can have a donation for lots of tree saplings to be planted in areas of the sanctuary where they can't get to for at least a year or two that they can get a firm root hold in the. In the ground. And talking of the rain that you just had a little bit, I was watching one of your videos, and I just love the name. I forgot to say that last week or last recording, I just love the name of the mud wallow in the African female African Habitat Club mud. Which one of your, the winners of your virtual auction won the prize to give that a name? So whoever that was fantastic.

[Nadia Mari]

Very, very clever.

[Nadja]

I love the pun. So, yeah, how is she enjoying her mud wallow? And what about Poopy? We all want to know about her and Poopy.

[Kat]

Well, for about mud wallows, of course, there's the primary mud wallow, club mud that we made, and then there's various offshoots of club mud. So we have club mud, the primary mud wallow, and then we have numerous other, many, many other ones, including one that is soon going to be arriving to Japan. And that's Poopy's doing. She has at the 3B water trough. She can now fit all four feet in and she is definitely much shorter than the fence. Now there's a little bit of a hike to climb back out of it and she keeps digging away.

[Scott]

She goes in up to her elbows. It's like, what are you doing?

[Kat]

I sent some pictures to our colleagues in Pangaea the other day who are getting ready to, you know, their first enclosures. And I said, this is what it looked like soon. And their first enclosures are pretty small because they need to get ready for, hopefully, elephants as soon as possible in case something comes up. Still got a ways to go, but they want to make sure that have something ready in the event that something comes up. Because you don't want to be, as we saw here with my Angida, you don't want to say yes, but it's going to take us two years. You want to be able to say yes right away. So I sent them some photos and this is what's going to happen next.

[Scott]

And when we first started with the African habitat, a lot of people were like, oh, you're only making one mud wallow. And it's like, first we want to see how they are with this size because a lot of African elephants don't really like the ponds. They like just mud wallows. So, you know, for a mud wallow, it's a decent size and we wanted to see what they thought of it. And we had made the statement of, believe me, there will be more and we won't have to do it. And I mean, that's just how it is. They make all these landmines all over the habitat. Same way in Tennessee, you can't drive anywhere in the habitats because there's all these giant holes that they make so that they can play in them.

[Kat]

Most are right in front of the water troughs, but not all of them, especially during the rain season. There'll be more in different areas.

[Scott]

Oh, my God. They're going to be everywhere. Especially since Kenya is clearing spaces for them as we speak.

[Kat]

Yeah. Yeah. You can definitely see across the habitat a little bit more than you used to be able to. You still can't see the elephants, and even though it's a small space, you still really can't see them if they're in the middle. But it's not being devastated by any means yet. But Kenya has changed her patterns here in the last couple weeks.

[Scott]

Yeah, because, I mean, the first tree she touched before it even broke, she was like. And then she didn't. That was the one she took down. That was her first tree. She ended up taking it down that night. It was a tiny tree, you know, nothing big. But she quickly went from that to, I can take down 20 trees.

[Kat]

And she does so smiling and popping and tap dancing and rumbling and foghorning and pterodactyl noises. So many noises.

[Nadja]

One noise. Pterodactyl. I had to laugh while I was doing the transcript of our last podcast because I thought people who were just, like, you know, streaming and running through the podcast very quickly hear something about pterodactyls and think you've got, like, a Jurassic Park.

[Scott]

Yeah. We're trying to get video of her making her noises, but because pretty much every night when you go to Unite Feed, she's all full of herself when you show up with all sorts of noises. And again, trunk tapping, tap dancing, the whole nine. And the second you pull out a phone, she stops. She's like every other elephant. So Michelle has now, multiple times, tried to get it on video and still has yet to get it on video. And then one night, as soon as she put her phone down and went to move, she started all over again. So clearly they are very aware when we're recording.

[Kat]

It's entertaining, for sure. She's now doing. You guys have all seen the trunk pops. And I think we had the video that when she was trying to say.

[Scott]

Hi to poop, say hi to pooping.

[Kat]

And she's doing her trunk pumping. You know, it's not just, you know, in. In Mendoza, you'd see a lot of it when she'd do, like, the side of her face or her leg or, you know, then she started, like, doing in the air, and her trunk's, like, popping in the air over her head and the other day, she had it flat on the ground, and she was patting the ground, pop, pop, pop. Like she's just doing this stuff all the time. So charming.

[Nadja]

And so she does that with her. With her foot as well, doesn't she? I saw in a video. Why does she do that? It's just something just a little.

[Scott]

Just a little happy, expressive thing.

[Nadja]

All sweet.

[Scott]

Yeah, we had elephants who did trunk popping, where they do it side to side. We had trunk touching where they tap on their own trunk or their face. I mean, we've seen it before in Asians.

[Nadja]

Okay.

[Scott]

But, yeah, it's just their happy little expressive, absolute cuteness when it comes to.

[Kat]

Her as she's being cute and charming and squishing her face into the fence. And she gets her nose stuck because it's her own body squishing her nose against the fence. And she, like, Trump is like, what happened? Holy cow. That was you. You're the one that squished your own nose against the fence. And she gets silly and playful and light, and she's a joy. I mean, there's just the summary of all of this. It's just a delight.

[Scott]

Yeah, she's very. She's older than Poopy. She's in her 40s. I think she's 44. But she is very childlike at this point. I mean, there's just. She is definitely enjoying herself and her new space and her new friend. Even if they're not best friends yet, she doesn't care. It's still great.

[Kat]

And speaking of that friendship, we still have a reserved Pupi. We just not ready yet. She'll come over. She'll come really, really close. And I almost get the impression right now that, you know, I think Pupi's ready for her to touch her, but she's also okay with not taking that first step. You know, I think if Kenya reached out at the right time, I think that Pupi would probably stay there.

[Scott]

Well, we've had the two episodes lately, the one where Pupi squished herself into the gate between one and two, and Kenya was right there. And then when they both had their heads up on the fence and were moving their trunks around, not touching each other with their trunks, but Michelle's pretty sure that their faces were touching while they were doing it and moving their trunks around. So they're just. I mean, it's very silly the way that they're going about all of this, which is great because, I mean, they can be. African elephants can be so much more forceful in their introductions and Demonstrative. And they have all these displays and blah, blah, blah, and, you know, they tussle sometimes, and it's just very different than Asians. And they're both being actually really, really soft with everything.

[Kat]

For as big a personality as Kenya is, she's being remarkably delicate with all of it.

[Scott]

Yeah.

[Nadja]

So there's still a fence between them, then?

[Kat]

Yes.

[Scott]

Or.

[Nadja]

Okay, they're not in the same yard.

[Kat]

Yeah. I mean, I would love to open up for them. It's not the right thing to do. It wouldn't be fair to Poopy. You know, Poopri still needs more time.

[Scott]

And we don't want to create a chase scenario, you know, because since she's not ready, we don't want her to feel like she has to run away. And then if Kenya follows her, not in an aggressive way, but in a. Wait, wait. I want to be your friend, you know, that's not going to matter to Whoopi. She's still gonna see it as being chased. So.

[Kat]

And that can manifest into an aggressive chase. I mean, look at it like with a dog and a cat, sometimes the cat that stays still is totally fine. The cat that starts to run, the dog then is like, oh, I'll chase you. And then once this haste happens, then you have this, you know, amplification of energy, and then that can turn into more aggressive chasing. So depends on the cat. Depends on the dog, of course. But you see that often with dogs and cats where, you know, one starts to run and dog starts to go after it, and then it completely changes the dynamic. And people say, I never thought she'd be aggressive. Well, it turned into from chase to hunting.

[Nadja]

So with both elephants arriving quite close together at the same. Well, not the same time, but sort of, you know, a couple of months between. Are you noticing any similarities between how they are both discovering, like, what it means to be an elephant again, how they are exploring? I mean, you said already that Kenya's knocking down more trees than Pupi. Obviously, Pupi is more insecure, although I think you said that Kenya is as well, but she expresses it differently. Are they just. I'm just wondering, are they just doing the same typical sort of African elephant behaviors that you would expect?

[Scott]

They are so different. So different in pretty much almost every way.

[Nadja]

Oh, okay.

[Kat]

I mean, if you're looking at exploration and if you're looking at, you know, coming out of the habitat with trees hanging out of their mouth, I mean, that's the same, you know, building mud wallows, that's the same, you know, Those type of mannerisms, you know, the, the behavior patterns. Yeah, it's very, very similar.

[Scott]

I think both of them initially were, you know, it was a multi step process to get them comfortable with exploring and blah, blah, blah. And they're both really good with just going off on their own now and getting lost.

[Nadja]

But personality wise, obviously. Yeah, they're different. Different personalities.

[Kat]

Completely, completely different. Yeah, but that's just, you know, for. For Pupi, I think she was just trying to learn. I think she's still on a journey of what it means to not be a pair of, you know, because it was kooky and poopy for all those years. And I think she still is trying to figure that out a little bit. And not to say she's mourning kooky by any means, but I think there's that relationship hadn't really. Or that solitary life had not existed for very long before coming here. So I think she's on a little bit different journey that way than Kenya. Where Kenya had all those years alone. She was her own girl. I mean, she was her own being where Pupi was part of that pair. And I think that's still a little bit different adjustment that way. Pupi's still pretty introverted.

[Scott]

Yeah. And we had initially said we kind of hoped that they brought a little bit of balance to each other because Kenya's personality was so big. And of course Pupi was. She's just not really emotionally open. But Kenya and how emotionally vulnerable and open she is doesn't always serve her or at least hasn't in the past. You know, how easily she was offended with some of the things that happened with training that were innocent mistakes on the human side that she still took so personally, you know, so it's not. I mean it. How emotional she is is one of the most beautiful things about her for sure. But, you know, it is again, there's a balance to everything. And we thought they might in the long term. It's not going to happen right away, but both be able to balance that out in each other a little bit.

[Kat]

And Poop is still very vocal when she. When Kenya comes over. Not all every time, but most of the time she's very vocal. She greets her, she's. We hear them rumbling back and forth periodically. Poop is super engaging sometimes she just doesn't have that same emotional vulnerability and expressive nature that Kenya has. But interesting when you said that she. Where she would be offended, that behavior pattern at the zoo, I haven't seen that at all.

[Scott]

No.

[Kat]

Not even the Slightest bit where. And we're pushing different things. We're trying to do footwork and lean ins and touching her belly and touching places her body where she hasn't been touched ever. You know, so we can start doing physical exams and looking for ticks and looking for scratches and, you know, touching her, you know, her belly and touching her girly bits and, you know, scrubbing.

[Scott]

Her 8 inches of dead skin that's.

[Kat]

On her back and, you know, pushing that limit sometimes, like, are you ready for this? And, you know, then you take that step and she's. Even if she says no or even if afterwards she has a little bit of a, you know, uncomfortable reaction, she doesn't get offended anymore. She is like, oh, I wasn't really sure about that, but let's try again versus just walking away from you.

[Scott]

Or the one time she, I mean, she literally threw a fit through a trunk up in the air, trumpeting, running around. I mean, she can have really strong responses. And yeah, we haven't had that. Now that we said it.

[Kat]

They'Re both doing really well.

[Nadja]

And are there any favorite spaces is that. Or is it too. Too early to say that after one month or maybe for puppy, you know, jumping between the two today. Any favorite spaces in their habitat that you see on the camera if. Or if it's close to the. Where you can still see them, that they like to hang out?

[Kat]

I don't think so. I don't even think that is, you know, one. It's relatively small still. It's, you know, I don't know how many, 10 acres total or something like that. 12 acres still relatively small. I mean, it's three enclosures. It's, you know, and some people hear 12 acres and say it's huge, but it's not. I mean, we definitely can't see them from the barn many times and there's many times we can't see them at all at night feed. And we drive in circles and circles and circles and, you know, try to find them at night to make sure everything's okay and. But I don't think they have a favorite anywhere. Pupi really likes the bottom of yard three, but that changes too. She likes to. Sure.

[Scott]

Because she used to like that tree in the corner of yard one that I really like that offered some nice shade. And can you change that? That tree doesn't exist anymore in its former self. There's a beautiful. There's a beautiful tree in the back of two which is actually protected because it is an old, any of the really old growth Trees. We put elephant fencing around so that they can maintain their life for the duration. But it's such a nice area and I don't see them there a super amount.

[Kat]

No, they're not by that tree a lot.

[Nadja]

So how's the expansion getting along?

[Kat]

Going really well. Boys are making really good progress. The male transport crate is now done. So now we are welders that we're working on. That was a team of four that was working on the transport crate. Now they are full time fence and we are thinking that hopefully within a month the next yard will be done. Depends on weather, depends on wind. If we start getting those normal hot, dry summer winds or what in this time, I mean down here, winter winds, that's going to change because sparks start flying. We have a lot of water protection. We have, you know, the water tanker is close to where they're working and all of those things. But people there with water backpacks just to make sure.

[Scott]

And now we have a new sprinkler system.

[Kat]

Working on a sprinkler system that's mainly to assist with fire control. So if we have a fire coming, we can turn on the sprinklers in different areas and saturate different areas to help create additional fire breaks.

[Scott]

Because the fires here are so low burning and slow, you know, it's not like California wildfires. So if you can just wet down a large enough area, they just go out.

[Nadja]

That's great. So lots of, lots of good news. Kenya is slowly, yes, reforming the habitat. Lots of, lots of donations of tree saplings, please. And but good to hear that you have cordoned off certain big tree. Is that that really big flowering tree that when I was there, Mirella showed me one in the African habitat, a really huge one. I don't know what it was. Flowering. It was magnificent.

[Kat]

No, this one is not. We have, we are actually the time of year where things start flowering.

[Scott]

But no, but we are telling the guys that they need to weld faster. Weld faster.

[Kat]

She needs more trees before we get a bunch of saplings sent to us. But then we have to fight off the, the, the leaf cutter ants from devouring before they get to grow anywhere. This habitat will regenerate very, very, very, very, very quickly on its own. The whole area that they were in was full pasture when we arrived. You know, 10 years ago. There were no trees there. There was this tiny little sprouts. So we just needed.

[Scott]

It was used for cattle before we got the property. So it was nothing but pasture grass.

[Kat]

And if you try to isolate an elephant pasture to help trees grow. You're probably isolating it for about 10 years, which we don't have the space to do that. So we appreciate that. The sapling consideration, but that would be a lot of work and not a lot of gain. So please, please, please, you can send donations, and we can use that to help our friends crew work faster and expand more areas. Probably be more beneficial than trying to plant a bunch of saplings.

[Nadja]

Okay, that's a good deal. And continue buying gift baskets for Kenya with apples and what. What is puppy's favorite food at the moment? Has she got one? Last time you said Kenya sort of likes everything.

[Kat]

Actually, poopy is more. Poopy likes literally everything. Kenya does not like pineapple, does not like papaya. But everything else she's good with. But I don't think either of them really have a strong favorite anywhere.

[Scott]

No, I mean, everybody likes watermelon, but. And popcorn, which is used just for treatment training. Okay, we're gonna try guava this week, so we'll see if that's a yes or a no. But papaya is one of those things we tried with the Asian elephants in Tennessee. They hated it. Like, hated it. Did the angry stamp on it. How dare you feed this to me? What is this garbage? Hated it. We had one papaya. We had one elephant who ate it. And we have no idea why she ate it, because clearly she didn't like it. She was drooling while she ate it and making faces. And we're like, so don't have to eat that. But she ate it anyway. And then she ate her friends after.

[Kat]

But the look on her face of this. Disgusting. And just couldn't stop herself from eating.

[Scott]

It because she was wonderful. But everybody, almost everybody likes it here, which was kind of weird for us because of the disdain.

[Kat]

It might be a Mendoza thing. Geisha doesn't like it either.

[Scott]

Tammy's not always. Yeah, but she's picky.

[Nadja]

I love. I love papaya. So send over some papaya. So what have you got planned then for. For the rest of the day? As we draw to an end today, plans Project Scott.

[Kat]

Oh, I can't think that far ahead.

[Scott]

Oh, my God. I'm so confused with what I did this morning because everything went so off the rails.

[Kat]

We have relatively short staff right now. We have a couple of people who have been away, and we have new people coming in in the next few weeks. So a little bit short staff on weekends. So I'm gonna go fix something on the water system and then gonna be taking care of elephants.

[Nadja]

Sounds good. Yeah. Enjoy your afternoon. Lots of coffee. Enjoy your afternoon. And we'll meet up for our next. For our next recording then. Bye, you two.

[Kat]

Thank you, Nadja. We'll talk soon.

[Scott]

Bye.

[Nadja]

As we wrap up this week's episode, a reminder that you can stay up.

[Nadia Mari]

To date with current events at the sanctuary by following GSE on their social media channels. You'll find all the details in the show notes or directly on their website, global elephants.org. thank you so much for your support. And until we meet up for our next episode, take care.