Two heroic elephants rushed to save a drowning calf from Seoul Grand Park Zoo in South Korea's capital.
Footage of what appears to be a baby elephant falling into a large pool of water and rescued by two adult elephants from the Seoul Zoo had gone viral on Twitter posted on Saturday, Yahoo News reported. Although it can be seen that the two adults struggled to keep the calf's trunk above water as they entered into the pool, they were able to team up and guide the little elephant to the shallow end.
One of the adult elephants was believed to be the mother of the calf. With another adult elephant rushing over, the two managed to keep the calf between them and lead safely out of the water.
The video, garnering more than 2.3 million views, has gone viral since it was uploaded.
Compassionate and Kind Animals
Many viewers were touched by the compassionate and kind nature the elephants displayed, but were not surprised.
"Cows, chickens, goats are equally compassionate. Stop eating them," one user commented. Others say elephants are intelligent mammals with the ability to think and act quickly. "Also proved," wrote another Twitter user. "Intelligence (problem and solution both identified), Memory (location of shallow end), Cooperation."
"I'm waiting for the day people aren't surprised when animals act like more than objects," another commenter said. "Animals are just like us (better than us actually), the only difference is they haven't learned to speak our language (well some have)."
One commenter from Yahoo News even added that mammals such as elephants and dolphins "are likely more emotionally intelligent than humans", proven by many studies on both species. "Very intuitive, empathic creatures, with their own distinct cultures. Amazing creatures we have on this planet," she noted.
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One of the World's Most Empathetic Animals
According to an article from Lalibela Game Reserve, it has been recorded that elephants are one of the world's most empathetic animals, although they are typically seen as huge, intimidating animals that one would naturally fear due to their size.
Elephants are even considered emotional, 'extremely delicate' animals, and "one of the few animals that are capable of displaying emotions, empathy, and emotional intelligence," it wrote.
Empathy means the ability to sense others' emotions and understand what they are feeling. Elephants, for a fact, have been known to possess this quality and respond to other elephants' pain and sadness. As displayed in the viral video, the giants immediately recognized the fact that the young elephant needed help and came to the rescue.
"Best animals ever! Anyone else notice how the elephant in the background behind the fence was agitated too?" a user commented on Yahoo News.
Other times, when a member of the herd cannot walk as fast as the others due to injury, the others will slow down to ensure that the injured elephant is not left behind. They were even seen trying to help dying loved ones and honor them with funerals.
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