Under the hot sun in East Africa, Mother Nature plays a cruel trick on little elephants. She traps thirsty babies in deep watering holes with no way out.

"In most cases it's close to death. It's a real race against time to save the babies once you find they are in the hole," said Gerry Ellis.

Northwest photographer Gerry Ellis has documented the rescue and rehabilitation of numerous baby elephants in his book, "Wild Orphans."

It's an extraordinary story that takes Gerry from the basement of his Portland, Oregon home to a remote wildlife orphanage in Nairobi, Africa, where he meets a group of motherless elephants he calls the "Orphan Eight."

Gerry Ellis

All are lucky to be alive.

"It's horribly sad when you hear the scream of a baby elephant," said Gerry. "It goes into your bones and it begins to rattle you and you never forget it."

Most often, infant elephants lose their mothers to poachers or they're abandoned by their herds.

That's how seven of the eight babies were orphaned.

During a severe drought, adult elephants, desperate for water, dig deep holes in the bottom of riverbeds – sometimes 7 or 8 feet down.

All a big elephant has to do is get on its knees and slurp up the water with that incredible trunk.

But often, the baby slips down into the hole and is unable to get out.

There is nothing a desperate mother can do and the baby is left behind.

Its only hope of survival is to be found and rushed to a unique orphanage run by the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust.

At this 24-hour nursery, the traumatized babies receive endless care. Wounds are healed along with broken hearts.

For the grieving orphans, the keepers become surrogate moms.

Gerry, with camera in hand, was given rare access to the rehabilitation of these eight elephants.

"They play practical jokes all the time and they know they're getting away with it, and that's what's so fantastic about it," said Gerry.

Eventually, the Orphan Eight are taken to a national wildlife park in southern Kenya and introduced to other older elephants.

There more than 1,000 roam the wide-open range and when the time is right, the Orphan Eight will also wander free.

They survived an incredible journey from abandonment to acceptance, and in the brutal African bush, the they have become a family of their own.