An Asian elephant mother got quite a fright when her baby fell into a pool at the Grand Park Zoo in Seoul, South Korea. The footage recorded by the zoo shows the curious one-year-old elephant getting close to the water’s edge and accidentally tumbling in.
Fortunately, the baby elephant was not actually drowning, says Joyce Poole, a National Geographic explorer and co-founder of ElephantVoices: “When elephants swim, they put their trunk out of the water and continue to breathe.”
In the video, the baby can be seen doing this snorkeling behavior—meaning it was in no imminent danger.
But then why the panic? Even though the family knows the baby can swim, they are still clearly alarmed it has fallen in