Baby elephant needs mother's help getting out of river

Few wild animals show love, care, and support for one another like elephants do. Baby elephants specifically are incredibly well looked after by their mothers and receive support without fail during their daily learning and struggling activities. After all, with a gestation period of twenty-two months, one can imagine that a baby elephant is seen as a huge investment by the mother. While on safari in the Kruger National Park, I managed to capture one of those events that just shows how well mother elephants look after their babies. I came across a large herd of elephants busy making their way through a long and muddy river crossing. The splashing noise of all the elephants crossing the river could be heard from far. Among the elephants crossing the river, I spotted a baby elephant, crossing the river with its mother, barely tall enough to keep its head above water. The baby elephant stumbled through with determination and when it became shallower, the baby elephant looked in a real hurry to get out of the river. The baby elephant sprinted ahead and reached the riverbank before its mother, heading straight for the same spot the rest of the herd was using to get out. With the same eagerness it had in the water, the baby elephant attempted to get up the slippery embankment itself. This seemed to be a real challenge as the baby elephant was slipping too much in the slippery mud to get up the riverbank. The mother elephant remained calm and slowly approached her baby, probably thinking ’hold on little one, not so fast’. The mother elephant then used her forehead and trunk to support her baby and pushed it up the slippery hill until it was back on dry land. I kept filming the rest of the herd crossing the river when I noticed one large adult elephant wanting to go out the same route the mother and her baby used. Unexpectedly, the big elephant could not get up the riverbank. This was so funny to watch. I then realised that while being too small can be a challenge for a baby elephant, being too big also puts limitations on adult elephants. One thing was for sure, the big elephant was not going to receive any support up the hill like the baby elephant did.