The heartbreaking footage, captured and shared on social media by a forest ranger, shows an adult elephant carrying the dead body of an infant with its trunk, while other elephants followed him
A video has gone viral on social media that shows a herd of elephants mourning the death of a calf in a ‘funeral procession’.
The heartbreaking footage, captured and shared on social media by a forest ranger, shows an adult elephant carrying the dead body of an infant with its trunk, while other elephants followed him. Praveen Kaswan spotted the elephant carrying the calf and seven other elephants making their way across a road.

“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 mean 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.

The reverse is also true. They have been known to come and thank people who have helped rescue their calves from danger.
Grieving herd of elephants hold ‘funeral procession’ for dead calf, video goes viral – Watch

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