It’s a well-known fact that elephants exhibit strong emotional behavior; not only do they mourn their loved ones’ passings, but they have also been known to take revenge, and as a viral video from an undisclosed park in Africa seems to show, baby elephants can have pretty impressive temper tantrums, too.
The video footage shows a solitary baby elephant near a rough dirt road. It seems like whatever journey this little guy and his herd were on, he’s ready for a rest stop and is not ready to wait any longer. After collapsing in a heap on the ground, rolling about to scratch some unseen itch, the young elephant seems content not to get up.
Soon, other members of the herd come lumbering back to linger with the lazy calf. Elephants are known to be very affectionate and caring of their young; not just the parents but the whole herd take care of the young.
Sheldrick, who ran the biggest and most successful elephant orphanage in the world, shared some insight into this charming behavior that in spite of strong group dynamic and lots of supervision from elders, elephant calves “know envy and jealousy, can throw tantrums and harbor grudges about a perceived injustice, just like human children.”
Eventually, though, after getting all that pent-up angst out of his system, the calf picks himself up off the ground and trots back to join his herd.
As Sheldrick, who spent her whole life raising young elephants wrote, “When rearing long-lived animals such as elephants, one must dig deep from inner reserves to find ’staying power,' for it is a long-term assignment parallel to raising a human child.”
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