How it happens6:01Elephants form ring around the small during the earthquake of the protection
Mkhaya, a seven -year -old elephant in San Diego Zoo Safari Park, can easily rest if she knows that her family has her back.
When an earthquake of the 5.2-Magnite earthquakes hit the area on Monday, Mkhaya’s herd wasted no time to form a protective barrier around them known as the “alarm circle”.
The phenomenon, which was recorded on video, has zoo employees who shine the sharp instincts of the African elephants, effective communication skills and a strong family connection.
“So that you deal in your surroundings and the signals that you get and react appropriately How it happens Host Nil Köksal.
“And it is noteworthy to see that these family bonds are so strong that they come together immediately to take care of each other.”
When an earthquake in San Diego met in San Diego on Monday, elephants in the San Diego Zoo Safari Park instinctively circled their young in a so -called “alarm circle”.
The herd members were in their enclosure for food when the rums began.
They immediately stopped what they did and looked around. Then they gathered in the middle of the housing and stood completely quiet for a moment.
“You have your ears out.
“So you are really somehow frozen at this moment and try to collect as much information as possible so that you can decide what our next step is? And this is a survival strategy that all elephants have.”
It is also quite possible that they spoke to each other.
“Elephants also have the ability to communicate far below our hearing in a frequency so that they can control this all the time. We just couldn’t hear it.”
Brother appears to defend the sister
It didn’t take long to achieve consensus. The three adult women – Ndlula and Umngani and Khosi – circled Mkhaya quickly and saw themselves to protect them.
Mkhaya’s half -brother Zuli, also only seven years old, joined the older women and saw himself as part of the barrier.
This prompted Khosi – a teenager who, together with his biological mother Ndlula, imposed the young man repeatedly tapping her trunk.
“Almost as if she was checking him,” said Albright. “Maybe I wonder: ‘How is it that you are on the outside of the circle and not inside?'”
Elefant herds consist of adult females, usually a matriarch and her relatives and young people of both sexes. When the males reach adolescence, they leave their herd somewhere between 10 and 15 years and go in search of friends.
Zuli is still a child, says Albright, but he approaches the age when he will separate from the group.
“When she went away (from the circle), he was still touched like his mother. So as a adult bull, he is not entirely confident. He is still a teenager,” she said. “But these are only moments for him to demonstrate his maturity development within the family group.”
Alarm circles are a perfect natural elephant behavior, which is often shown in the wild, says Chase Ladue, a nature conservation scientist who works with elephants in the Oklahoma City Zoo.
If there is any kind of threat – an unknown sound that approaches people fights against animals – the adult females of the herd instinctively include the young people.
“Elephants often have close ties together, work together to find food and other resources and defend each other against potential threats,” said Ladue.
The fact that it occurred in captivity is a good sign that the facility kept the natural family unit of the herd intact.
“These social functions are also available in places such as zoos in which we strive to replicate natural social structures and offer elephants the opportunity to express natural behaviors,” he said.
Ultimately, the quake was no danger to the elephants. It caused some minor damage in the mountain town of Julian near the epicenter, but nobody was injured.
Shortly thereafter, the herd returned to search for food. About an hour later, when a aftershock hit, they crowded again briefly and then distributed themselves as soon as they found that everyone was safe.
Albright says they had acted exactly as elephants should have, which was encouraging.
“It is simply a wonderful example of the strong family loyalty that have elephant herds,” she said.
With files from the Associated Press. Interview with Mindy Albright by Mariela Torroba Hennigen produced.
