Security footage from the park shows the moment clearly. One minute the elephants were basking in the sun; the next, they were reacting as the ground began to shake.
The three adult females scanned their surroundings and quickly banded together, forming a tight circle around two 7-year-old calves.
Experts call this behavior an “alert circle,” a response matriarch elephants display when they perceive a threat.
“Elephants are highly social, they take care of each other,” says Joshua Plotnik, an associate professor of psychology at Hunter College in New York who studies elephant behavior.
