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come on, sweetheart. so robert is trying to turn her and bring her to the side that is shallow. apparently she doesn t think that that is a good idea. the engine noise further stresses the trapped calf. you can imagine the sound of a land rover engine running over. it s basically like shouting at them constantly. oh, baby, i m sorry. you fell in a well, you silly girl. the team members have to coordinate carefully to avoid either man falling into the pit. go? as vicki waits for the right moment to hit the gas, robert tugs on the rope and nearly loses his footing. what they re trying to do is get the rope under the tail as best. the trouble is the water is so deep in the bottom that it floats on the surface. 30 minutes later, they ve ....
Made no progress. for a minute there, we just stood there looking at each other. we didn t know what to do really. after a few more attempts, robert and mark get the calf turned in the right direction. they secure the rope under its belly and tell vicki to step on the accelerator. careful. whoo! she s out. she s out. she s going to charge you. get back in the car. just let the rope go. once out, they realize it s a male calf. and he heads straight for his mama. he knew where the mother was. he knew where the direction of the mother was calling from. ....
the amboseli elephants trust us. they know we re not a threat to them, so we don t break that kind of position lightly, but when you do break it, you have to make sure you do it in a convincing way. so i was behaving very, very strangely, and she didn t like that. vicki s tactic works. zomba retreats across the savanna for the moment. a co-worker in the second jeep blocks zomba from returning, while vicki drives back to the well. her colleagues, robert and mark, get out of the jeep. vicki stays at the wheel where she keeps the videocamera recording and a watchful eye on zomba in case the group is forced to make a hasty retreat. if somehow the mother get back and find us there, out of the car, struggling with the calf, i don t know what would have happened. it would have been really, ....
you can tell that they re desperate to be together and they re very, very happy once they are together. once she has the calf, she reaches for him, brings him to her, stands and lets him suck klg, and she s not threatening us, she s not even particularly vigilant to the car. she s just happy to be back with her baby. i have to say, i was crying by the time he got back to his mother. i was just so happy. it felt so fantastic. the happy reunion is even more heartwarming in light of a spike in african elephant deaths at the hands of poachers eager to cash in on the valuable ivory tusks. every other day you wake up, every other day it s just news, bad news about elephants. it s successes like these that keep vicki, robert, and their colleagues committed to protecting elephants. ....
the calf is eight months old and enormous, posing a serious threat to robert and mark s safety. they weigh 200 pounds when they re born, and this was eight months of good food and lots of mom s milk. we could not get in there, so our option was to use the ropes. their plan is to harness the calf with a rope attached to the jeep and pull. the calf has been in the well for hours and is exhausted. its mother is still nearby, so a quick rescue is essential. the calf has stirred up mud, and the sides of the pit are extremely slippery. i was terrified the rope would pull taut and one would trip and fall in with the baby calf. it s very dangerous. the baby elephant who they think is female, has turned toward the direction of its mother s cries, which unfortunately, is also the steepest side of the well. in the jeep, vicki describes what she s seeing. ....