by It Was Quite Emotional And ᴅᴇᴠᴀsᴛᴀᴛɪɴɢ To See These Photos
The elephants, Tess and Mana, were discovered by wildlife photographer Jens Cullmann at Mana Pools National Park in 2021, they were sᴛᴜᴄᴋᴇᴅ in the dry mud.
The charity’s team, locals, and a veterinarian spent around half a day freeing the two ɪɴᴊᴜʀᴇᴅ animals using ropes and shovels. Ropes and shovels were used by members of the charity, locals and a veterinarian, who took around half a day to free the two s.tricken animals.
The elephants were ɢɪᴠᴇɴ ɪɴ ᴛʀᴀᴠᴇɴᴏᴜs ᴅʀɪᴘs for their dehydration after being hauled out of the ground and then loaded onto a plane to be flown to the Zimbabwe Elephant Nursery. The pair had become st.u.c.k after trying to get water and were too w.eak to escape from the mud.
One of the baby elephants grips a rescuer’s leg with its trunk after it became stuck in the mud, the touching moment. A newborn elephant usually weighs around 20 stone, though it is not clear exactly how old the pair were.
Rescuers use a branch with a rope tied to it as a lever to extract the elephant from the mud. Men pull on a rope which was passed underneath the elephant and the mud. They has a rag draped over its eyes to keep it calm while the rescue workers use shovels and ropes to extract it from the mud. One of the rescue teams holds an ɪɴ ᴛʀᴀᴠᴇɴᴏᴜs drip for the elephant, who rescued out of the mud and another rescuers pulling on a rope to free one of the remaining elephant.
After was rescued out of the mud. The elephants were loaded onto the back of a truck and transported to a waiting plane. The baby elephants were given i.ntravenous drips to help them re-hydrate and then flown to Wild is life’s Zimbabwe Elephant Nursery. The nursery was established in 2012 by Roxy Danckwerts. The two babies are now recovering and are enjoying life at the Zimbabwe Elephant Nursery.
‘It must have happened in the night before – I was at this time in this area every day and I would have noticed it. When I found them, the elephants had already i.n.jur.ies, probably from hyenas.” the photographer said
Characteristics of elephants
During the dry season, they use their tusks to dig up dry riverbeds and create watering holes many animals can drink from. Their dung is full of seeds, helping plants spread across the environment—and it makes pretty good habitat for dung beetles too. In the forest, their feasting on trees and shrubs creates pathways for smaller animals to move through, and in the savanna, they uproot trees and eat saplings, which helps keep the landscape open for zebras and other plains animals to thrive. But they can’t move out the dry mud by themself when they s.t.u.c.k.
