Baby elephant separated from its mother runs to humans asking for help in cute video
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. According to the Indian Express, the story was shared by a retired Indian Forest Service officer, Susanta Nanda, on his X profile. Nanda shared that the baby elephant ran towards the forest official’s vehicle and nudged him for help.
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. The team realized that they had witnessed the mother earlier with the herd and could easily relocate the baby. However, the mother could only accept her baby if there was some sort of recognizable smell. So, one of the officials rubbed his mother’s dung onto the baby's trunk and legs before rushing him toward her. The mother caught the smell, recognised it, and was happily reunited with her baby. The report mentioned that the calf let out a “soft trumpet” to say thank you to the team.
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. One was separated for 2 years, and the other for a long 12 years. The study stated that the scent of feces works most efficiently for elephants in recognising each other even after 12 years of separation. The two pairs of African elephants were divided into kin and non-kin groups. To understand the play of olfactory senses, the two groups were then mixed, and when separated from their kin members, elephants showed signs of agitation and sadness.
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. And the feces scent was the signature part of this excitement. The pain inflicted on the mother-daughter duo who were separated for 12 years is unimaginable and cruel on the part of us humans who have knowingly and unknowingly used animals for our gain, even though we pass it off as 'research'. Although we know the forest officials played a crucial role in this reunion, a study shows the remarkable bond formed between a baby elephant and his mother, thus amplifying the whole concept of parental love across a range of species.