A 2-month-old baby elephant named Linh Mai made her public debut yesterday at the National Zoo in Washington for Earth Day. She’s the first elephant born there in nearly 25 years. Her name means “spirit blossom” in Vietnamese, which is pretty perfect. Now here’s the twist: her mom showed signs of aggression toward her after birth, so the zoo had to separate them. But a 52-year-old elephant named Swarna stepped in as a surrogate aunt and has basically been glued to this baby’s side ever since. Staff say Swarna actually wakes up in the middle of the night just to check on her. Right now, Linh Mai’s big job is learning how to use her trunk… which, apparently, takes a while. Eating, drinking, breathing, communicating… all trunk. She’s working on it. The zoo says she’s doing great with the crowds, calling her “a little ham.” Asian elephants are endangered, with fewer than 50,000 left in the wild, so every birth is a big deal.
And honestly, a baby elephant who’s a crowd-pleaser and has a surrogate grandma watching over her? That’s the feel-good story we needed.
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