Theses extraordinary images show the trust and understanding developed between children and orphaned elephants calves rescued from a forest.
The one-year-old elephants live in Arignar Anna Zoo in Chennai, southern India, where they are cared for by a team of mahouts – a person who works with the animals – and their children.
The youngsters are carried home from school on the elephant’s backs, shower together, play football and even sleep curled up with them.
Best foot forward: Nandini, eight, and Lavindya, six, the children of mahouts ride home on Sharon. The 14-month-old orphaned calf was rescued from Sathyamangalam Forests in southern India
Nandgopal, eight, and Lavindya, four, lie asleep next to Giri, an orphaned elephant calf who was rescued from Hosur Forest in southern India
Zoo staff believe without this friendship and love the orphaned elephants would have died soon after being rescued.
Mahout Rajan, 25, said his four-year-old daughter Lavindya has a special bond with the orphans.
“When she says ‘stop’ the calf obeys her,” he said.
“She is very gentle with them and they will wrap their trunks around her to show their love. Such is the bond the calves will only go to sleep when the children cuddle up and pat their backs.”
This extraordinary emotional bond between child and elephant has been developing over the past year since the zoo took in its first orphan.
Rangers found Sharon wandering alone in the forest and brought her to the zoo. Now the 14-month-old orphan has a fixed routine along with the three other baby elephants Narsima, Urigam and four-month-old Giri.
Their day starts with a morning bath, and it’s not just the elephants who get a scrub down.
The children join in too, and 14-month-old Urigam can’t resist grabbing the bucket with his trunk and pouring water over gorgeous Lavindya.
Lying in the small pool, the youngsters splash cooling water over the elephants and tickle their tummies with a scrubbing brush.
Bathtime: Nandini, four, and Nandgopal, eight, give Sharon a scrub after a long day
Displaying the impressive skills he’s already mastered Anu, six, commands an adult orphaned elephant
“Every morning at 7am they wait at the place where the kids have a bath before going to school,” said Rajan.
“They are so punctual and they adore showering with the children.” Breakfast follows bath time and once again the children are quick to help feed the orphans a mix of milk, coconut water and glucose.
The mahouts feed the elephants every three hours with their favorite snacks of water-melon, bananas and sugarcane, to build up their strength.
Fed and washed, the youngsters head off to school but out here in the bush there is no school bus to collect the students.
Instead Lavindya, Nandini, 4, Nandgopal, 8, and Anu, 6, hop onto the elephants backs and trundle through the scrubland to their village school. The elephants carefully carry their school bags in their trunks.
After school it’s playtime and pigtailed Nandini grabs her football for a kick-around with the gentle giants.
She giggles as Sharon playfully chases her through the village.
‘I want to spend all day with them but I can’t because I can’t miss school,’ said Nandini.
The zoo is funded by the Indian Government but more money is needed.
P.L. Ananthasamy, director of the zoo said: “We need more funds to provide better care to these calves.
‘We also need a separate rehabilitation centre for orphaned calves as more and more calves stray away from herds,” he added.
‘Without the parental care of these families, the calves wouldn’t have survived, so they work they are doing is vital.’
Incredible moment vets save mother elephant’s life in front of her worried calf by jumping up and down on her to give CPR after pulling the pair out of a drain in Thailand
This is the inspiring moment a mother elephant was saved when vets conducted CPR by leaping up and down on her chest as her young daughter watched on.
The 10-year-old bull and her baby calf, one, had slipped into a concrete drain amid heavy rain in Nakhon Nayok, central Thailand yesterday afternoon.
A storm had made the grass wet and muddy, causing the pair to fall into the 7ft-deep hole
Torrential monsoon rain made it near-impossible to retrieve the pair, with vets mobilising a cherry picker to pull the huge mammals out the drain.
But after the mother hit her head and was knocked out cold, her life was suddenly at risk.
The one-year-old calf looks on with concern as her mother, ten, was jumped up and down on by a team of vets yesterday
A team of vets immediately leapt on the mother elephant after pulling her out of the hole so she would regain consciousness
The mother elephant looked worse for wear as she was hoisted out the deep golf drain by park rangers and a team of vets
The baby elephant was able with help to make her own way out of the ditch, having fallen in the previous night
Incredible video shows the mammoth three-hour operation to pull the elephants out to safety – and then save the mother.
Lead national park vet Dr Chananya Kanchanasarak said: ‘It was impossible to get near the baby while the mother was nearby so we gave her three doses of tranquilisers but she moved towards her baby before passing out and hit her head.’
She added that the mother ‘regained consciousness after being stimulated by both me and the baby’.
Park rangers feared that the mother would cry for help from the 30-elephant herd nearby if they forced their way to pull the baby, so they called the vets.
The baby elephant calf embraced its unconscious mother in worry as the group of men and women jumped up and down
The entire rescue effort took a total of three hours, with the mother elephant knocked unconscious after hitting her head
Lead national park vet Dr Chananya Kanchanasarak watches as a cherry picker pulls out the pair of elephants from the drain
Dr Kanchanasarak leads her team as they roll over the elephant so she can receive their urgent medical attention
The baby calf was stranded in the golf drain overnight before her mother fell into the 7ft crevice, knocking herself out cold
The crane is pictured putting her down after lifting her out of the ditch, with the baby soon to follow. CPR was then needed
The cherry picker crane was needed to pull the elephants out of the hole as the pair were unable to get out themselves
The baby calf appeared to be terrified as her unconscious mother was lifted out before receiving CPR from the doctors
A team set up a temporary barrier to prevent the protective and potentially violent herd from approaching.
The baby elephant couldn’t make her own way out of the 7ft drain as heavy monsoon rains lashed the national park
While the mother was passed out in the hole, the baby elephant – who was trapped the night before – suckled milk, which gave vets some relief.
A crane was used to pull the creatures out of the muddy drain before the vets continued with their work.
The moment the mother touched safe ground, three vets jumped on her to revive and wake her up as the impact of falling on her head could have hurt her.
Fortunately, the mother elephant woke up.
Park rangers and vets left the scene to allow the jumbos to reunite – and be joined by the huge herd.
Delighted rangers and emotional vets were seen watching the mother and her baby disappear back into the forest.
Dr Chananya added: ‘Despite the obstacles, the mother did not leave her baby’s side.
‘This experience touched our hearts and will be one of the most memorable rescues we’ve done.’
The vet said that both ‘mother and baby are safe’ and she thanked people for the ‘hard work of all parties involved in the rescue’.
There are an estimated 4,000 elephants in Thailand.
About half of these live in captivity in animal camps, zoos, and sanctuaries. The rest can be found roaming national wildlife parks.
The crane was needed to lift the immense mother elephant out of the deep ditch in the Thai national park yesterday
Dr Chananya said the experience touched her team’s hearts and that it was one of the most memorable rescues they’d done
The two elephants became stuck in the drain amid intense monsoon rains lashing central Thailand yesterday afternoon
A crane was mobilised to lift the mother out of the hole after she fell in, possibly to retrieve her daughter, who slipped in too
The mother elephant fell head first into the golf ditch, with its legs scampering in the wet mud as it tried and failed to get out
Rescuers and park rangers looked on as the elephants were allowed to walk back into the forest together after the efforts