He sniffed around in the air to recognize his mother’s smell, but had no luck catching the scent.
In this heartwarming story of compassion, we saw a baby elephant running to humans when he got lost on the way to find his mama. In India’s Assam, lies a protected wildlife land, Kaziranga National Park, where this incident took place
The video showed an anxious baby calf encircling the vehicle, indicating to the forest team that he was seemingly lost. He sniffed around in the air to trace the smell of his mother, but had no luck catching the scent. Watching the animal in such severe distress, the officials jumped to help the baby elephant.
Research has widely shown that the olfactory sense is crucial in Elephants to maintain long-term memory of their fellow beings. The calf was able to rejoin his family solely due to this factor. To understand the functionality of this rare ability, NIH studied two pairs of mother-daughter African elephants.
Researchers in their interest of noting the role of feces in reuniting with the herd, kept a pair of mother and daughter separated for 12 years. The findings were astounding, as even after a decade, the elephants recognized the smell of the dung and were then reunited. The kins made rumbling sounds and flapped their ears, all while indicating a positive response towards their reunion.