Proof elephants show compassion in face of death

by KATIE HAMPSON

Last updated at 13:09 14 August 2006


An elephant struggling to help another get back on its feet as it lays dying from a snake bite is proof that wild animals have feelings too.

A series of astonishing photographs - which show Grace the elephant calling out in distress as her friend Eleanor falls stricken to the ground - reveals how emotional elephants can be.

The footage, shot by scientists at the Samburu National Reserve in Kenya, caught Eleanor falling to the ground in agony after being bitten.

Gallery:

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target="_top" href="/newspapers?url=javascript:self.name='main';PopUp('you_popup','/pages/galleries/index.html?in_gallery_id=8482∈_page_id=1055','780','550', 'yes')">Amazing photos of how the elephants gathered to help and mourn

Her friend, Grace, gently prods her to help her back on her feet. But Eleanor is too ill to respond.

As her great weight crushes her internal organs, she dies the following morning.

And as her lifeless body lay on the dusty ground the next day, other grief-striken elephants gathered round to mourn, either standing silently or rocking back and forth, heart-broken.

It is proof that elephants, in many ways, think like humans, feel like humans and act like humans.

Where most animals, unlike humans, appear to show little interest in the dead of their own species - apart a handful of other animals such as chimpanzees and dolphins for example - these elephants are concerned about their ailing or dead members of their species.

Grace, the matriarch of a separate family, still came to the aid of Eleanor, who headed the First Ladies.

Professor Fritz Vollrath, from Oxford's Department of Zoology, said: "These fortuitous and fascinating insights into elephant life were possible only because of the detailed, long-term monitoring of this important Northern Kenyan elephant population."

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