There was a huge herd of elephants that decided to take on the role of being body guards for a particular female while it gave birth to its young to protect her from lions and hyenas which were most like to attack it and cause harm to it and its young one. This took place in the Amboseli National Park which is situated in Kenya at the beginning of this very month.
Paolo Torchio who is a wildlife photographer was the one who observed the strange behavior amongst these elephants while on his early morning drive and he was amazed by all that they were doing just to keep the female safe from predators. They were all round the female, closed any little gap between them in an effort to prevent any carnivorous animal from seeing what was going on. A few minutes after the calf was born, it was hanging on to the tusk of its mother with its trunk as it tried to get on its feet for the very first time.
A raiding hyena had to find it way away from the herd after the elephants stamped and throw dust into the air to scare it way. They pulled out grass and soil throwing it all over the area something that Paolo Torchio thinks is done just to cover the smell of the blood as well as the placenta and therefore prevent the predators like hyenas and lions from attacking; he also added that this was atypical firm flock. They set up a very tough wall using muscles and tusks which could definitely scare any other animal. They usually do this especially during an attack from predators like lions and while there is a female that is giving birth after a period of 22 months and therefore needs protection from its fellows.
The Amboseli National Park is about 3,100 square miles covering parts of Kenya at the boarder of Kenya-Tanzania and it is very well known for being the greatest place in Africa where you can find free-ranging elephants. Paolo also said that this was amazing to him because it very rare to get a chance to see an elephant give birth in the wild since it is so hard to know the real time when it will give birth.
This was really so beautiful to see the kind of unity that the elephant have amongst themselves and willingness to protect one another as animals of the same family.
