Watch this baby elephant figure out how to use her trunk

It's harder than it looks

Published January 15, 2014 10:37PM (EST)

      (Screenshot, WWF)
(Screenshot, WWF)

Is there anything cuter than this video of a polar bear cub taking its first steps? Yes, yes there is.

The WWF brings us a 6-month old elephant calf learning how to use her trunk. She was born into Indonesia’s  Flying Squad, an "elite team" of critically endangered Sumatran elephants that are trained to protect humans from wild elephants -- and vice versa.It's an unconventional way of dealing with a pressing problem: as development takes over the elephants' habitat and food supply, the elephants respond by raiding communities, where they are unwelcome. The four elephants in the Flying Squad, along with their eight trainers, a truck and a variety of noise and light-making devices, drive them safely away.

Promoting peaceful interspecies coexistence is a lot to ask of an elephant. But so is figuring out to use a trunk. We'll let this calf start with that:

h/t HuffPo


By Lindsay Abrams

MORE FROM Lindsay Abrams


Related Topics ------------------------------------------

Development Elephants Video Wildlife Wwf