This video of a baby Sumatran elephant trying to use her trunk is possibly the cutest video to emerge in a while.
We love all elephants -- big and small, old and young -- but there's something particularly endearing about watching one tirelessly attempt to imitate her mom's feeding, especially when she seems confused as to what that long, dangly thing could be.
Don't worry baby elephant -- we'd be even more baffled if we had to use a trunk like you.
Born this past August in Tesso Nilo National Park in Sumatra, western Indonesia, this female elephant calf is a Sumatran elephant -- the smallest of the Asian elephants. Because of poaching and habitat loss, Sumatran elephants are critically endangered, with a remaining population of 2,400 to 2,800 individuals.
But this elephant is special: She was born into WWF-Indonesia's elite Flying Squad, a team of four trained adult elephants and eight elephant handlers that work to reduce human-elephant conflicts. Because elephant habitat is declining, wild elephants have increasingly been approaching villages and raiding crops. The Flying Squad gets deployed to both protect humans and herd wild elephants back into the forest before they get poisoned or killed. The elephant featured in this video is the fourth calf born to this Flying Squad since it was established in 2004.
Related
Before You Go
