When a young calf had a mishap in the mud recently at a waterhole in South Africa’s Madikwe Game Reserve, the rest of its herd launched an equally muddled rescue mission.
With the mother elephant trying desperately to scoop her calf to safety, most of the other herd members stood by without coming to her aid.
“They were very inexperienced in the situation and didn’t really offer any help as breeding herds would normally do,” he notes.
With the herd adopting a back-and-forth strategy of retreat and hapless milling around, the calf’s fate looked increasingly precarious. Struggling to free itself from the slippery mud, it became agitated and exhausted – and the ordeal clearly had an effect on the other elephants.
Thankfully, this story has a happy ending. Through what seems like sheer coincidence, the mother elephant and another herd member finally “bumped” the youngster up the bank during a prolonged and disorderly interaction at the edge of the waterhole.
Image: Rodney Steyn