The loss of a child is one of the worst fears of a parent. Parents don’t want to outlive their children. It’s not the natural order of things.
Do animals mourn when their children die young? Yes, we believe so, at least, we believe elephants do after watching a video that was shared on Twitter.
In the video, which was shared by Twitter user Parveen Kaswan, an empty road is completely blocked by people and vehicles preventing any vehicles from driving down the road. The people are not blocking the road as a protest or as a way to disrupt traffic. Instead, they decided to block the road to help a mourning herd of elephants.
One elephant walks towards the road. It is carrying something in its trunk. Kaswan tweeted that the elephant is “carrying dead body of the child elephant.”
The elephant carrying the child elephant walks across the road and sets the child elephant down at the opposite edge of the road. Then, more elephants come into view approaching the road and slowly crossing it, pausing in a group around the young, dead elephant. This group includes adult elephants as well as young children elephants. Kawan explained, “The family just don’t want to leave the baby” and described the mourning elephants as in a “funeral procession.”
Eventually, the elephants continue on their journey. One by one, they slowly walk away from the road, but they do not leave the dead child elephant behind. One of the larger elephants picks it up with its trunk and continues to carry it.
Watch this touching video for yourself below.
This will move you !! Funeral procession of the weeping elephants carrying dead body of the child elephant. The family just don’t want to leave the baby. pic.twitter.com/KO4s4wCpl0
— Parveen Kaswan, IFS (@ParveenKaswan) June 7, 2019
