NOTE: BABY ELEPHANTS CAN’T SWIM until it’s several months old! This Elephant Herd, with a cute NEWBORN baby elephant, want to ɡet to the other side of the Shimanquaneni Dam in Kruger National Park where the gazing are more plentiful.

Will they succeed? Why did they have to go through the dam? Why not walk around the dam, its not that far? Provably the herd wanted to introduce the baby to water asap? ‘

Although elephants are natural swimmers, they do not know how to swim as babies.

South African elephant conservation researchers found that baby elephants (calves) do not learn how to swim until they are several months old. The mother elephants will stay with them when they are near water.

Baby elephants like to play in the water, and this helps them learn how to use their trunks. When elephants are very young, they do not know how to control their trunks. Many times they bend dowп their heads to drink water instead of using their trunks’.

Yes, older elephants are very good swimmers and they thoroughly enjoy the water, but BABY ELEPHANTS CAN’T SWIM until it’s several months old!