A momma elephant spent 11 hours attempting to save her baby from a muddy well in India. She stayed by her baby’s side for the better part of a day before trying tug the young elephant calf from the thick and deep mud.
The elephant mother actually made the situation worse for her calf when she tried to use her trunk as a rescue rope. She accidentally caused more mud to fall into the well and nearly smothered her baby. The elephant calf was reportedly trapped in the muddy well from 9 p.m. to 8 a.m. the following morning.
Villagers in the nearby village of Chatra, India ultimately came to the rescue and helped free the baby elephant from the muddy well. The villagers heard the distressed moans and cries coming from the area of the muddy well and went to investigate.
The India villagers were able to deter the mother elephant from using her trunk to reach down into the muddy well, which was likely not an easy task. Although elephants may appear slow and docile, attacks on humans have occurred, especially when the massive creatures feel threatened.
A video of the baby elephant rescue filmed by Jitendra Tiwari has gone viral. Tiwari also aided in the efforts to free the elephant from the muddy well. “We chopped off a few banana trucks and put it near the well so that the mother elephant moved away for sometime. The plan worked and we used the time remove the heap of sand deposited near the well that was making it difficult for her to rescue the baby,” Tiwari said.
Once the Chartra villages had reconfigured the area around the muddy well, they allowed the mother elephant to come back to the well and help remove her baby. The worried momma elephant then securely wrapped her trunk around the baby elephant’s thickly coated and slippery body and puller her out of the well.
Once freed, the baby elephant and the momma elephant enjoyed a blissful reunion and then continued on their journey to reach a destination unknown.
[Image via: Shutterstock.com ]
