Addo elephant rescue.

Addo National Elephant Park is situated in the Eastern Cape province near the city of Port Elizabeth. Here in South Africa when we talk of Port Elizabeth we just say PE.

I got this story and the photos by email from a friend.

In the photos below you will see adult elephants trying to rescue a baby elephant which had fallen into a water hole and could not get out.

You can see the baby just under the head of the young elephant in the water.

Addo park rangers brought a backhoe to try and make a slope in the vertical banks of the water hole so that the baby could climb out. The adult elephants became very agitated at the sight of this big machine and would not let them near the baby.

The rangers managed to drive off the adults so that they could help the baby.

Two rangers jumped off their pickup truck and ran to help the baby. Mother elephants are very protective of their babies, so what they were doing was extremely dangerous.

Baby elephants are very heavy but they managed between the two of them to lift the baby onto the bank.

Other rangers came running to help.

The rangers ran off to get back on the pickup and out of moms way, but baby had other ideas and ran after them.

Mom could not see her baby because of trees and bush in the way so the ranger put baby on the truck and drove to an opening where she could see her baby and put it on the ground.

Baby still wanted to go with it's new found friends so mom had to chase after it.

Relieved mom and her baby together at last. The little elephant had been trapped in the waterhole for 3 hours. This rescue took place on the 27th of August 2014.

Never approach a wild elephant, never ever get between elephants and their young! If you should see any wild animal in trouble contact the park rangers as this photographer did. 

As they say in the classics, "don't try this at home".

The history of Addo Elephant Park and it's elephants is a very interesting one, I will do a post on it soon.