A Large Gathering

The past two days have been really interesting in the elephant world. First we drove up to a group of 60 elephants all in one area! As amazing as this sighting was, it was very difficult for me to focus on just one individual as there was a lot going on at one time. We recognized some of the herds in the group , but there were definitaely some unfamiliar faces. The next day as we were driving through a long stretch of water we noticed a group of about 15 elephants running across the road in front of us in a hurry. We knew that these elephants were new to the area as they were not use to our prescence.  As we watched the herd disappear into the bush, we noticed that a small one year old baby got left behind and was limping on a broken front foot. We felt really awful for the baby and kept an eye on him to make sure he reunited with the herd. We switched off the vehicle and were expecting an angry mother to come storming out looking for her baby, but this never happend. The elephants just carried on like nothing happend. Perhaps they did not realize they left a member behind, but elephants mothers would never leave there tiny baby behind. Since the baby was so far behind, we figured that he might have come from a different herd and was tailing along this new herd for protection. After about 10 minutes a few of the elephants came back and started to rumble for the baby, but the baby did not answer back. We had lost the baby for about 15 minutes, when suddenly he came out from the bush and limped across the road. When he finally joined back with the herd they did not celebrate or embrace him, but kept walking. I felt awful for this baby and wish there was something I could have done. We tried to follow this herd as long as we could to see if they would reject the baby, but as skiddish as they were , this was impossible.

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