wo baby elephants attempted to charge at a huge antelope for the first time in this funny moment, but their intended victim seemed unimpressed.
Photographer Janet Kleyn, 53, captured the two calves practicing charging while the rest of the herd drank from the waterhole in the Mashatu Game Reserve in Botswana earlier this month.
The two calf attempts to chase away an eland antelope by running towards it repeatedly. But despite the much smaller animal’s best efforts, the eland seemed dissatisfied. The animal maintains its position and waits for the herd to move on so it can have a drink.
“A group of elephants was consuming water at the waterhole when an eland came up to the surface,” according to Janet, 53. “He was unfazed and waited for the herd to leave before entering for a drink, even though two newborn elephant calves tried to chase him by charging him.”
“The juvenile elephants’ brief charge lasted only around two minutes of the herd’s approximate ten-minute presence.:
“It was adorable to watch the baby elephants attempt to gauge the effectiveness of their charge.”
“They resumed drinking after realizing that Eland was not scared of them.”
The elephant herd spends a lot of time protecting, raising, and imparting survival skills to its young members.
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Baby elephants receive intensive care from a network of moms and aunts in the herd for the first two years of their lives, after which they are supposed to continue learning on their own. Around 12 to 14, male elephants (bulls) abandon their herd and may live alone or in tiny bachelor groups.
A group of younger bulls will frequently accompany an older bull, who will teach the younger offspring social graces and survival techniques.
A calf weighs between 170 and 250 pounds at birth and is about 36 inches tall at the shoulder. The calf is helped to stand immediately after birth and can stand within minutes, which is essential for survival. The calf will be ready to join the herd a few days after it is born.
Visitors to Mashatu in Pont Drift earlier this month were thrilled to see elephants having fun in the mud.
A newborn elephant was seen by photographer Janet Kleyn in September as it struggled to escape a pool before receiving assistance from other herd members.
The Northern Tuli Game Reserve, a wilderness region, contains the Mashatu Game Reserve. It is one of the biggest privately owned game reserves in southern Africa and is located in Botswana’s eastern region at the confluence of the Limpopo and Shashe rivers.
It has open borders in the south and north with the national parks of Zimbabwe and South Africa, respectively. Wide open plains, grassland, riverine woods, rocky hills, marshland, and sandstone ridges make up the scenery.
Mashatu, which translates to “Land of the Giants,” got its name from the giants that roamed the area as well as the Mashatu or Nyala berry tree.
The reserve is home to Africa’s “big seven” land-dwelling giants, which also include lions and ostriches in addition to elephants and the eland, the largest antelope in the world. Female eland can be up to a foot shorter than males and typically stand around 5 feet (1.6 meters) tall to the shoulder (1.2-1.5m).
