After a harrowing 6-hour rescue, the lives of a family of 5 elephants were saved — thanks to the efforts of wildlife rescue officers in Pahang, Malaysia.
The perilous situation was captured in a 3.5 min viral video uploaded by Perhilitan Official on Facebook. We take you through the touching story below.
We’ve translated the video’s caption into English as follows,
5 elephants who were trapped in a muddy pond in Pahang have been rescued by the Pahang Wildlife Department during a special rescue operation on 20 Aug.
The video depicting the elephant family’s escape has already amassed an impressive 716,000 views at the time of writing, along with 8.4k shares.
In the early hours of Tuesday (20 Aug) morning, the Pahang Department of Wildlife and National Parks received a distress call from an Orang Asli village regarding 5 elephants — 4 adults and 1 baby.
The animals were reportedly trapped near an “abandoned gold mine” in Runchang, Pahang.
Villagers had overheard the family of elephants trumpeting for help before alerting the authorities.
Due to the excess mud, the elephants were unable to climb out of a sunken area in the land within the mining area.
The team swiftly engaged the help of a mining company, who deployed an excavator to create a path up the slope for the elephants to escape.
After 6 hours of grueling rescue work, the elephants managed to climb up the man-made slope.
They were last seen trekking into the nearby forested area, back into the wild.
The officers on the case believe that although the rescue operation took about 6 hours to complete, that the elephants were trapped in the muddy area for much longer — estimates place the length of their ordeal at 2 to 3 days.
As elephants are communal creatures, they believe that the baby elephant had fallen in first, before its mother and other elephants attempted to help it.
In his words,
We think the infant had fallen into the pond. Its mother and the other three elephants then probably tried to rescue it, but they got stuck as well.
We’re glad that the elephants came to no harm in the story as they are considered endangered animals in our region. The Star reports that there are only an estimated 3,000 elephants left in Malaysia.
Most netizens have praised the efforts of the rescue team to secure the release of the animals in need.
Hopefully, we can strike a balance in conducting man-made activities so they don’t interfere in the natural habitats of our friends from the forests.
This feel-good story, would be a great start to promote awareness for this cause.
Featured image adapted from Perhilitan Official on Facebook.
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