Moment Elephant Sees Caretaker in 'Fight' She Runs to His Aid To Help
There are plenty of creatures in the animal world that surprise us with their human-like tendencies. While some seem rather foreign and difficult to understand, there are those who show traits that we recognize.
Birds copy voices they hear, and their mimicry can be quite convincing. Other critters are good at problem-solving and are able to build basic tools to accomplish complex tasks.
Dolphins, elephants, apes, and even pigs have been recognized as rather intelligent animals. They seem to have more awareness than other species.
These animals tend to have very strong bonds with members of their groups. Elephants have even been known to stand watch over deceased members of their herd to grieve.
Female elephants are very social animals and are very protective of their young.
The males tend to be less social. Occasionally they will form groups, but many bulls live on their own.
A herd of females, young elephants, and babies is a tight-knit group. They help keep an eye out for each other and protect the youngest in the herd — even if the babies aren’t their own.
Female elephants are very attentive and will respond immediately if they think a member of their group is being threatened.
In the video below, you can see how quickly the adult female elephants respond to the cries of the young elephant that has fallen on its back.
Since they’re in a zoo, the baby is in no immediate danger, but in the wild, it might be attacked by large predators if it couldn’t right itself again.
The worried elephants crowd around the baby, trumpeting and flapping their ears, kneeling down to get closer to the baby until they can push it over and get it on its feet again.
It only takes a few seconds, but the care and concern they have for the baby is clear in how quickly they rush to their fallen herd member.
They even escort the baby out of that area of the enclosure as if they’re trying to make sure it’s safe and keep it from going back to the same spot.
If an elephant is bonded with a human, the same kind of behavior can take place. One elephant in Chiang Mai, Thailand, has illustrated this beautifully in the video below.
Of course, the situation is contrived: the elephant’s handler is “attacked” by another human to make it seem like he is in trouble. His elephant — whose name is Thongsri — notices and rushes to his aid.
Thongsri displays the same sort of behavior as the adult elephants in the previous video do: she runs over to her caretaker, ears flapping, and starts circling him while going down to her knees to check on him.
While plenty of elephants are trained using cruel methods and are kept for entertainment purposes, this protective behavior probably wouldn’t be displayed if the elephant didn’t absolutely adore her handler.
One thing is for sure: Thongsri isn’t going to let anyone hurt her human!
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