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HAPPY REUNION FOR BABY ELEPHANT

The baby elephant has now recovered

Thursday May 24,2007

By Mark Reynolds

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IT IS the kind of love and care he had hoped for in the first place.

But after being savagely attacked by his mother shortly after birth, this baby elephant finally received some maternal affection from her yesterday.

As the Daily Express reported yesterday, the as-yet-unnamed African male elephant was born unexpectedly on Sunday at Berlin’s Tierpark zoo.

Watching crowds then became horrified as his six-year-old mother Pori began attacking him, seemingly trampling on him and trying to drown him before keepers rescued him from the pool.

The reason for the attack is not known. But after being reunited under the watchful eyes of zoo authorities yesterday, the pair seemed happy and relaxed. A zoo spokesman said Pori, who has given birth twice before, was now taking “exemplary care of the newborn”.

The authorities even claimed that the pictures of the “attack” had been misinterpreted. “The mother nudged the baby to make it get on its feet but on the pictures it looks like she wanted to flatten it,” the spokesman said. “However, elephants always do that and they do it very carefully with their feet and with their trunk.”

But some visitors who witnessed the mother’s disturbing behaviour were in no doubt about her intentions. One, Karola Ebert, said: “It seemed the mother wanted him dead. He was bleating as if to say, ‘Why are you doing this, mummy?’ He stood no chance.”

Pori also crushed her first baby to death in her pen, but again zoo authorities claimed this had also been an accident.

POOR LITTLE CRITTER

24.05.07, 6:06pm

I think this mother needs watching, who knows why she did it and maybe she will do it again, poor little snot getting trodden on by his mum like that , ooo eeer.

• Posted by: 1916july • Report Comment