Eat-After-Birth

Context: Birth (1)

Elephant Aware observed a family of about 20 elephants at around noon on December 2017 a few minutes after one of the younger adult females had given birth. The wobbly newborn was surrounded by the excited and very attentive family, while the mother was focused on the afterbirth.

About an hour after the infant was born she began to pick up the placenta with her trunk. She swung it vigorously in the air for at least 20 minutes. At one point she draped it over her head and her tusks and by the end she was covered in blood and dust. Throughout this display she also ate small portions of the placenta until most of it was consumed. Once the elephants had moved on Elephant Aware examined the birth site and found nothing of the placenta remaining.

We share two short clips of her behavior from two different cameras. (Maasai Mara, Kenya)

Eat-After-Birth

Context: Birth (2)

Elephant Aware observed a family of about 20 elephants at around noon on December 2017 a few minutes after one of the younger adult females had given birth. The wobbly newborn was surrounded by the excited and very attentive family, while the mother was focused on the afterbirth.

About an hour after the infant was born she began to pick up the placenta with her trunk. She swung it vigorously in the air for at least 20 minutes. At one point she draped it over her head and her tusks and by the end she was covered in blood and dust. Throughout this display she also ate small portions of the placenta until most of it was consumed. Once the elephants had moved on Elephant Aware examined the birth site and found nothing of the placenta remaining.

We share two short clips of her behavior from two different cameras. (Maasai Mara, Kenya)

Eat-After-Birth

Context: Birth (3)

This extraordinary footage was shot by Kelly Fogel in Kruger National Park. She, a guide and a driver saw a tiny newborn elephant, an older sibling and the mother who still had the placenta hanging from her vulva.

From her notes to us: 'As we watched the baby learn to walk and figure out how to nurse (the older sibling was also nursing which seemed odd at that age) the placenta eventually came out and then the mother began to eat it. It was almost as if she was inviting us to watch and join what seemed like a ceremony or ritual, as if she was compelled to eat the whole thing. She also was flinging it around and at one point it was stuck on her head. (The only video I have found online with elephant placenta is one where the elephant is flinging the placenta but not eating it in the video). It took her about 20 minutes to eat it all and then the older calf who had walked off a little bit made a loud vocalization and the mother walked towards it and the 3 of them walked away.' (Kruger National Park, South Africa)