San Diego-while the ground shook from an earthquake of 5.2 magnitude, a herd of elephants in the Safari park of the San Diego Zoo came into action to protect their young.
A video taken from its enclosure in the park on Monday morning shows the five African elephants standing to the morning sun before the camera is stirred and run in different directions. Then, the major elephants, Ndlula, Umngani, Khosi, fight to surround and protect the two 7 -year -old calves Zuli and Mkhaya from any possible threat.
They remain curled up for several minutes while the older elephants look out, seem to be ready, their ears extend and flutter, even after the rocking chair stopped.
The earthquake was felt from San Diego to Los Angeles, 120 miles away. He sent rocks that fell to the rural roads in San Diego County and demolished articles of the stores in the small mountain city of Julian, near the epicenter, but did not cause wounds or important damage.
But it scared the elephants.
Once in a circle, “they freeze while collecting information about where the danger is,” said Mindy Albright, a mammalian curator in the Safari park of the San Diego Zoo.
Elephants are highly intelligent and social animals that have the ability to feel sound through their feet. When they perceive a threat, they are often grouped into an “alert circle”, typically with young people grouped in the center and adults who face out to defend the group.
In the video, you can see one of the calves running to take refuge among adults, a group of matriarchs that everything helped raise it. But the other calf, the only man, remained on the edge of the circle, wanting to show his courage and independence, Albright said.
Meanwhile, the female elephant, Khosi, a teenager who helped raise him along with his biological mother, Ndlula, took it repeatedly on the back with his trunk, and even in the face, as if he says it to say: “Things are fine” and “stay in the circle.”
Zuli is still a baby and is bitten as such, Albright said, but his role will change in the coming years as he becomes a bull and moves to join a degree group, while female elephants stay with the family unit throughout their lives.
“It’s great to see them doing what we should all be doing, that any father does, which is to protect their children,” Albright said.
Approximately an hour later, when a replica arrived, they grave briefly again and then dispersed once they determined that everyone was safe.
