in a heartbreaking incident, a herd of elephants was seen carrying a funeral procession of a baby elephant as they wept and mourned the death of their loved one. The video of the incident was shared by a Twitter user Parveen Kaswan, who is also an IFS (Indian Forest Services) officer.
In the video, an elephant can be seen carrying baby elephant on its trunk as the herd follows and mourns the death of the baby. By the end of the video, the elephant can be seen carrying the dead child down the street while waiting for the herd to arrive. As soon as the herd arrives, they continue with the funeral.
The video has gone viral now and has garnered over 118 K views and 4,909 retweets. He captioned the video, ‘This will move you !! Funeral procession of the weeping elephants carrying dead body of the child elephant. The family just don’t want to leave the baby.’
“This will move you !! Funeral procession of the weeping elephants carrying the dead body of the child elephant. The family just don’t want to leave the baby,” Keswani wrote on Twitter.
As seen in the video, the adult elephant drops the carcass to the ground and waits by it as more elephants arrive from the woods. Moments later, the herd walk in a line and assemble around the dead body.
After spending a minute in silent prayer, one of the elephants picks up the dead body and leads the herd back to the forest.
Praveen’s tweet has garnered more than 14,000 likes, 6,700 retweets and hundreds of emotional messages in just three days.
One user wrote, “Very touching and emotionally disturbing. Elephant's capacity for complex emotions like grief is truly remarkable. Elephants never carry their healthy babies. There are obvious alterations in behavioral patterns. We have not yet fully deciphered animal cognition.”
“Whoever caught this video ... Thank you so much for sharing. Nowadays Human needs to learn humanity from Animals,” wrote another.
A female elephant carries a baby elephant in her trunk, a limp bundle, dangling lifelessly. She comes out of the forest to cross a road and at the edge of the road, drops her precious burden. Other elephants come out behind her. They mill about touching and smelling the baby. Then the female elephant carries the baby again and they pass into the other side of the forest. The video captured by an Indian forest officer, Parveen Kaswan, has gone viral around the world in the last four days with an outpouring of love for the elephants he filmed.
Scientists will warn against anthropomorphisation of animals, attributing to them emotions that are thought of as only human. But are grief and love only human emotions?
The forest officer has described his video as a "funeral procession". He says, "The family just did not want to leave the baby."
Elephants are known to have very strong family bonds, not only within herds that they are found in, but across herds. I have been at several elephant gatherings and watched them rush to other elephants in loud greetings. It is not uncommon to see great displays of love, not just between a mother and a calf, but between the calf and almost every member of the herd. Often when a calf loses its mother, the herd, unless in times of great stress , will adopt the calf.
This sort of "ritual" with dead herd members has been observed often amongst wild elephants both in India and Africa. They will often stop and contemplate dead elephant bones or corpses in their path. They have also been observed covering the dead with sand, leaves and twigs. As they are long-lived animals (age span of about 75 years), they form deep bonds, and as they have certain set elephant paths or routes, they often revisit areas where their dead have fallen. Every time, instead of just walking by they will stop, smell, touch and mill about, rumbling, as in the video below.When one of their herd is in distress, elephants don't just walk away leaving the member behind. They will try their level best to help. Often when babies or their young fall in ditches or get trapped in fast-flowing waters, several herd members will jump in to rescue, cry loudly and not leave until all hope is lost. It is not uncommon for them to risk their own lives to save family or herd members. A mother elephant can hold a muean grudge if her baby is under threat and often, elephant attacks on humans occur when she thinks or sees that her baby is in distress
Heartbreaking Video Shows Elephants Mourning, Carrying Out Funeral Procession Of Dead Baby
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