Adult Elephants Circle Around Their Young During San Diego Earthquake

On April 11, a magnitude 5.2 earthquake shook Southern California for a few minutes. No big deal, by California standards, but during the tremors the elephants at San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance were caught on camera displaying their survival plan, namely by forming a protective circle around their young.

A video shows the five African elephants enjoying the morning sun before the quake hits at 10:08 am, when the camera shakes and the animals  run in different directions. Then the older elephants — Ndlula, Umngani, Khosi — quickly gather in the two 7-year-old calves, Zuli and Mkhaya, and form a protective huddle, where they remain for several minutes, looking outward and flapping their ears.

The formation is called an “alert circle,” in which these highly intelligent creatures bunch together with the young nested in the center and the adults facing outward to defend the group if necessary.

Once in a circle, “they sort of freeze as they gather information about where the danger is,” Mindy Albright, a curator of mammals at the park, tells the AP. 

One of the calves is seen running for cover among the adults, while the other calf and the only male in the group, Zuli, sticks  to the edge of the circle, wanting to show his courage and independence, according to Albright.  The  females will coddle him for a few years until he hejoins a bachelor group of other bulls while the females stay with the family unit for their entire lives.

“It’s so great to see them doing the thing we all should be doing — that any parent does, which is protect their children,” says Albright.

Watch the elephants form their alert circle here.

Photo credit: San Diego Zoo and Wildlife Alliance via YouTube