Hutt Valley woman helps orphaned elephants
New Zealand cow milk could feed orphaned pygmy elephants in Borneo if a Porirua woman’s trial is successful.
The Rotarian first met the two elephants Jimbo and Tun Tan two years ago when she was representing the Rotary Action Group for Endangered Species.
Since then she has spent the past 18 months convincing Fonterra NZ to get involved in producing a milk powder especially for the elephants.
‘‘I spent $3000 US [$4250 NZ] when I was over there buying up all of the local milk powder for the elephants,’’ Debbie Mair said.
‘‘[Fonterra] has been fantastic and given me some milk powder to run a six week trial.’’
The former policewoman from Edinburgh, who runs Configure Gym in Porirua and sport shop Wild Haggis, said she bonded with the two baby elephants in Borneo. She will meet them again when she returns on July 29.
The trip is to collate the trial data to see if it was a success.
If it was, it would save the organisation that was spending between $80,000 and $100,000 per year on milk powder.