She stood there, unmoving, her grief as heavy as the lorry that took her baby’s life.
KUALA LUMPUR, May 12: More than a day has passed since a young elephant was struck and killed by a lorry on the East-West Highway near Gerik-Jeli, yet the image of the mother elephant—desperately trying to save her calf—continues to haunt Malaysians.
The tragedy occurred in the early hours of Sunday, on Mother’s Day, turning a day meant to celebrate love into a powerful testament of maternal anguish in the wild.
In a heartbreaking livestream on Facebook, user Mohd Amir Faizal, who was on patrol duty that night, described the moment he came across the mother elephant, still trying to free her calf.
“She cried. You could hear her cries echo through the night,” he said. “She wasn’t just standing there—she was in mourning. She pushed at the lorry again and again, trying to move it, trying to get to her baby. The damage to the vehicle came from her desperation, not aggression.”
The calf, believed to be about five years old, had initially survived the impact but was trapped. The mother refused to leave, using every ounce of her strength to try to save her baby. But the lorry was immovable. And time ran out.
“She knew her child was slipping away, and still didn’t give up,” Amir said. “She stayed there until the end. That’s not just instinct—that’s love, that’s heartbreak.”
The raw emotion captured in a viral video—of a mother unwilling to accept the death of her young—has moved thousands online.
“Elephants mourn. They remember. And they love deeply,” wrote Facebook user Amoral Abraham.
“That mother didn’t stand by her calf because she was confused. She knew what had happened, and she stayed because grief doesn’t let you walk away.”
Others echoed the sentiment. “That wasn’t just an animal reacting to loss,” wrote Rohirrim on X. “It was a mother breaking under the weight of a pain we all understand. We have to see animals not just as wildlife, but as beings capable of profound emotion.”
Apip Amran summed it up simply: “On Mother’s Day, a mother loses her child. And her pain was no less real than any human mother’s would be. It’s a loss that tears the heart.”
Gerik district police chief Supt Zulkifli Mahmood confirmed the incident took place at 2:50 a.m. on Sunday at KM 80 of the East-West Highway in Gerik-Jeli. Investigations are ongoing.
As the world moves on, the mother elephant remains etched in the minds of those who witnessed her heartbreak—a silent figure standing over a love that could not be saved.
