It can be a struggle trying to copy the adults, especially when they’re so much larger. These two elephant calves found out the hard way that they just weren’t able to climb the same steps so easily.
Spotted in the MalaMala Game Reserve, the elephants struggled to join the adults at the top of a river bank due to their smaller legs not quite reaching far enough for them to climb the step.
Mutual Respect
There aren’t any animals that would risk preying on a healthy adult elephant. Their prodigious size and strength makes them formidable foes, capable of fending off even lions.
Elephant calves are a different story. Their smaller size and relative inexperience makes them a prime target for hungry predators, so although adult elephants might be safe from attack, they still retain a healthy wariness around dangerous animals that still pose a risk.
At the beginning of this footage, a single elephant followed behind a male lion which checked repeatedly over its shoulder at the enormous animal, as they both show each other the respect that they’re due.
It’s unclear if this elephant was a part of the herd from later in the footage, but if it was then it was keeping an eye on this predator to make sure it didn’t get the opportunity to hunt them.
Little Tiny Legs
The much larger elephant herd was on the move, following a route that took them up and over the bank on their way from the riverbed. Or at least, that’s what they were trying to do.
Being big comes with many advantages, but being good climbers isn’t one of them. While these two elephant calves were the smallest they would ever be, they were still only slightly taller than the sudden step in the bank they were trying to climb.
They were able to get their forelegs up and over the bank, but they simply weren’t able to lift their back legs high enough to get enough purchase to push themselves up and over the hurdle.
A Helping Hand
It didn’t matter how hard the little elephants tried, their back legs and hips just didn’t have the flexibility to get over the step, and there was no way for them to go around.
After watching them struggle for a few moments, no doubt wondering if they were actually going to make it when one of them got very close to using their knee to lever themselves up, an adult eventually stepped in to give them the help required to set them on their way.
A little push was all it took to get one of them over the ledge and on the same level as the rest of the herd, but the other calf wasn’t so lucky, and the adult appeared to intentionally push it to one side, away from the bank it was trying to climb.
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Cruelty Or Kindness
The reason for this behavior wasn’t clear, as elephants are typically very cohesive in their social structure. Once a calf is born it is raised collectively by the entire herd, its mother and all of its aunts which will look out for it and help when necessary.
Why this adult would help one calf and push away another is unclear, but the unlucky calf which had its efforts rebuffed had to hurry along to another part of the bank where it tried again.
The rest of the herd came to the lip of the bank reaching out their trunks for it, but it couldn’t get up until it returned to the first spot it was trying, and without the strange bullying elephant, it was able to quickly scale the bank and rejoin the herd.