The amazing story behind that viral baby elephant video

Happy World Elephant Day! In honor of our pachyderm pals, we’re re-running this story about one of our very favorite elephant videos. Enjoy!

Attention everyone who loves elephants (that’s everyone, right?): our wildest, most adorable dreams have come true! In India, there’s a wildlife conservation that allows volunteer humans to interact and play with baby elephants. Many of the elephants at this particular conservation are orphans or injured (some are both), so their health and safety is dependent on the help of humans. The interactions with volunteers are meant to socialize the cutie elephants so they get used to human contact.

Watch as a baby elephant spends SO many minutes playing with a volunteer’s nose, and then seems to be just as curious about the camera being used to capture the beautiful interaction.

The video was originally posted 5 years ago, and is being circulated around the Internet again now — because why not? Good question, but we need more information. Who was this lucky lady and what was happening here beyond just incomprehensible cuteness?

So we reached out to the woman in the video, Amy Stanesco, who gave Hello Giggles some more deets on the situation:

It’s all so beautiful, and now we want to book our trips to India immediately.

Featured image via