Travel, Nature, Photography
It’s a Brand New World for this Six-Week Old Baby Elephant in Sri Lanka
April Six Word Photo Story Challenge: “Life”
Baby fuzz and pink, pink skin
The “baby fuzz” still stuck out a bit awkwardly from his pink, pink skin. His mother had just helped him, holding trunks with him the whole way, across a river that seemed too tall for him. He also had aunts and sisters who would have helped out if he had needed more assistance. But I still breathed a sigh of relief when I saw him reach the other side.
We were at an elephant sanctuary for orphaned and rescued Asian elephants in Sri Lanka. As you probably are aware, life for elephants has become a lot more challenging and they are experiencing huge population declines due to territory loss and ivory poaching.
There really is no perfect solution for these rescued elephants, many of whom have fallen into water sinkholes and been unable to escape without assistance, or who have been orphaned in the wild. Once they are brought to a sanctuary, most of the time they spend the remainder of their life there. But without these sanctuaries, these gentle giants would probably not have had a chance at life.
