Baby elephant's hunger moves mother to shake tree for fruit, video goes viral

A video showing a mother elephant shaking fruit down from a tree for her hungry calf is going viral on social media, moving many viewers.

In the video, a small elephant calf appears very hungry, repeatedly looking up at a tree laden with fruit. But the calf is too small for its trunk to reach the fruit, so it simply stands and watches. Its mother, watching the calf, understands it wants the fruit. She too looks up, but her trunk also cannot reach the fruit, which grows quite high up.

The mother elephant then steps back and pushes against the tree with full force, not once but repeatedly, shaking it hard. This causes all the fruit on the tree to fall, as if it were raining fruit. As soon as the fruit falls, the calf becomes very happy and jumps around joyfully as it eats.

The video has been posted on Instagram by a page called coreculture.inn and has been viewed by 1.7 million people so far.

A close look at the video shows the tree trunk bending slightly at the moment the elephant pushed it, suggesting how hard she must have pushed. Elephants are certainly very strong, but pushing that hard would surely have caused her some pain. Yet for her calf, the mother did not think twice about her own pain.

The video has drawn many comments. One user wrote that a mother's love is the same regardless of species. Another wrote that this is why elephants are their favourite animal. Another commented that humans are the ones who have destroyed forests, taking away animals' homes and food.

However, some social media users have also said the video could be AI-generated, since there is no confirmed information about where it was filmed, so it cannot be said for certain whether it is real. Still, whether or not it was made with AI, the video brings comfort to watch, and the calf's happiness is heartening. A mother's love, and how she does not think of her own safety for her child, is something humans should learn from animals.