Alexis Rae

An elephant urgently brought rangers a limp lion cub, and may have reached them just before it was too late.

Rangers had been patrolling the reserve when they noticed a lone elephant approaching them unusually slowly. Then they realized she wasn’t alone.

The elephant was carrying a tiny lion cub, which she gently gave the cub away before eventually leaving.
The cub was alive, but his hind legs barely moved.

Even stranger, there was no mother lion anywhere nearby. Rangers rushed the cub to a wildlife rehabilitation center, where veterinarians discovered serious injuries around his hindquarters that had left him unable to properly use his back legs.

Nobody knew how he had been injured or how the elephant had found him, but his condition suggested he may have been alone for some time.

Despite everything, the little lion was alert, eating and stubbornly trying to move around whenever his caretakers approached.

Rehabilitators began working with him in hopes that continued treatment could eventually give him enough mobility to return to the wild. Nobody could explain why an elephant stopped for an injured lion cub that wasn’t hers.

But somehow, she knew exactly where to take him.