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Daphne Sheldrick, a Kenyan wildlife conservationist who helped nurse, bathe and occasionally apply sunscreen to more than 230 orphaned elephants, and whose decades of work on their behalf made her one of the world’s foremost champions of a creature she described as a “human animal,” died April 12 in Nairobi. She was 83. The cause was breast cancer, her daughter Angela Sheldrick said in a statement from the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust. Ms. Sheldrick created the organization in 1977 and named it for her husband, who had died earlier that year and was the founding warden of Kenya’s largest national park. Before...

Elephants are among the most intelligent of the creatures with whom we share the planet, with complex consciousnesses that are capable of strong emotions. Across Africa they have inspired respect from the people that share the landscape with them, giving them a strong cultural significance. As icons of the continent elephants are tourism magnets, attracting funding that helps protect wilderness areas. They are also keystone species, playing an important role in maintaining the biodiversity of the ecosystems in which they live. During the dry season, elephants use their tusks to dig for water. This not only allows the elephants to survive...