The heartbreaking story of a mother elephant carrying a baby elephant’s carcass across the forest
22/05/2022 10:09 GMT+7
It was because she was so heartbroken over the death of her baby that the mother elephant held the body for many days and walked a long way through the forest.
Parveen Kaswan, an Indian ranger, shared a video capturing the heartbreaking moment when an adult Asian elephant dragged the carcass of a young elephant that went viral on social media.
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| Heartbreaking story of a mother elephant carrying a baby elephant’s carcass across the forest |
The Asian elephant mother carried the dead cubs for days, performing mourning rituals for the dead. “I think they are holding on and trying to accept what is happening. The mother still wants to interact with the offspring,” Parveen Kaswan said.
The video has attracted the attention of many netizens, having more than 534,000 views, 14,000 likes and thousands of comments.
Research by scientists at the Institute of Conservation Biology, the Smithsonian National Zoo and the Kyoto University Research Institute shows that Asian elephants, like their African cousins, have the custom of mourning their dead cubs. carry the dead body with him for days, even weeks.
Scientists have long found evidence that African elephants mourn, expressing mourning for those who have died in the herd. They approached the body, touched it, stood near the body to guard, even carried the body with them for days. However, the manifestations of Asian elephants are not well understood. They live in a deep forest environment, which is difficult to observe in the wild.
Brian Aucone, expert at Denven Zoo, said: ‘Asian elephants can stand just 30 meters from you but you can’t see because the forest is so dense.
According to statistics, the most prominent behavior of Asian elephants is that the mother takes her cubs away in the forest days and weeks after the baby’s death. Other common reactions include anxiety and sadness at the body, sometimes pushing and shaking the body as if trying to revive a lost baby.
Elephants aren’t the only social creatures that react to death, especially to the death of their young. Killer whales are one such species. In 2018, a mother killer whale named Tahlequah held her dead baby for 17 days off the coast of Washington. Several other killer whales gathered around Tahlequah and her baby as comfort, sharing sadness together.
Just like apes, monkeys. Mother gibbons and mother monkeys sometimes carry dead cubs for weeks or months.
Hoang Dung (synopsis)
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