A baby elephant has been rescued – by the nose – moments after his mother apparently tried to crush and drown him.

The drama took place just seconds after the baby was born in a zoo.

Pori, a 26-year-old African elephant, shocked onlookers by appearing to stamp on her new son.

She then began rolling him in her enclosure before putting him in water, in an apparent attempt to drown him. Visitors at Friedrichsfelde Animal Park in Berlin screamed to alert keepers, who lured Pori away from her child with bread and apples.

Members of the public then pulled the baby out of the water to safety.

He was given a tranquilliser and painkillers.

Amazingly, the baby was later reunited with his mother by zoo staff who said she had not been trying to kill him after all.

Although the mother killed her first baby in 2005 by accidentally crushing him, keepers think her behaviour yesterday was down to a failed bid to make the calf stand up.

Elephants usually nudge their young to help them take their first steps. Claus Pohle, deputy director of the zoo, said: ‘It only looked like she wanted to stomp him. All is well with Pori and her son. She is a proud and loving mother.’

Firefighters perform all sorts of heroics, from putting out blazes, to helping the injured, to dealing with car wrecks.

But Sunday saw a first: Maggie, the Anchorage Zoo’s beloved African elephant, had lain down inside her indoor enclosure - and she wouldn’t get up. Zoo employees asked firefighters from Station 8 on O’Malley Road to help.

All told, the pachyderm was down for some 12 hours, said Young Suenram, an Anchorage Fire Department battalion chief. Firefighters worked with urgency to raise her up, he said. With animals Maggie’s size - about 7,500 pounds, says the zoo - the compressed weight of her own bulk can cause breathing and lung problems, and even kill her.

It was alarming to see “how badly she was looking,” Suenram said. “We worked at trying to get her up as soon as possible. We are just so ecstatic that she’s up now.”

Eileen Floyd, a zoo spokeswoman, said it’s not uncommon for Maggie to lie down.

“Usually what happens is when she lays down, and the keeper comes in, she gets right up,” Floyd said. “It’s highly unusual if she stays down. So that’s where all the worry and concern happens. If they stay down really long, they have a tough time breathing. So that was the fear - that if she didn’t get up, eventually, she could die.”

Maggie showed signs that she wanted to stand, but couldn’t, Floyd said. “She has a couple of little abrasions because when she was down and trying to get up and unable to she was thrashing around.”

Initially, eight firefighters were on the scene: Four from Engine 8 on O’Malley, and four from Engine 9, a team that specializes in “high angle rope rescue.” Not exactly elephant rescue, but the crew knows how to get people off mountain cliffs and building faces, Suenram said.

Later, they were joined by nine more firefighters, including the Urban Search and Rescue team that’s skilled in lifting collapsed buildings. “It was very appropriate, since we had an elephant,” Suenram said.

The firefighters went online for ideas on how to hoist the massive mammal. They found information about a similar case in Los Angeles, and used that elephant rescue as framework to use straps, a winch, and firefighter brawn to save Maggie.

The 17 firefighters worked for hours in Maggie’s pen.

“With human power and with mechanical power, we helped her up and got her legs underneath her,” said Suenram, speaking from the zoo on Sunday afternoon. “She’s up now and she’s standing up. She seems fine. She’s eating peanuts and having fun.”

Floyd said the day-long incident didn’t disrupt zoo business. Maggie’s area and others are closed right now because the snow leopard nearby is about the give birth and zookeepers want to keep the surroundings calm and quiet, Floyd said.

Maggie first left her South African herd as a baby more than 25 years ago, after her mother was killed. She spent a brief period in New York before coming to Alaska, and joining Asian elephant Annabelle at the zoo.

Maggie draws crowds - and controversy. Since Annabelle died in 1997, Maggie has lived alone. She spends the cold half of the year in a 1,600-square-foot concrete enclosure, and animal rights groups say this makes her more subject to health problems, even early death.

Throughout the debate, Maggie has remained popular with Anchorage residents and visitors, and one of the biggest draws at the zoo. The zoo’s board of directors is supposed to review the elephant’s status in August.

Say hello to this baby elephant - the first ever to be born in the Republic of Ireland!

Dublin Zoo has been trumpeting the arrival of the baby girl elephant who was up and walking just eight minutes after she was born.

The baby Asian elephant, which has not yet been named, was born in darkness while zookeepers kept watch by using a special camera.

Zoo keeper Leo Oosterweghal said mum Bernhardine and baby are both well.

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He added: “This is the first ever elephant to be born in the Republic of Ireland and it was a completely natural birth, without any complications.

“Through our infrared cameras we could see Yasmin, another of the zoo’s elephants, offering her support to Bernhardine and taking great interest in the baby calf.”

The number of elephants in the sanctuaries of Neeligiri (INdia) biosphere spread over Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka has increased, according to a report as part of a three-day survey of wild elephants.

The data collected during the survey which concluded on Wednesday had been sent to the Periyar Foundation and Kerala Forest Research Institute for analysis, after which an exact picture would emerge, Wild Life Warden of Wayanad, Deepak Mishra said.

The census team had sighted herds of elephants on the banks of the Kabani river and other spots frequented by the animal in Wayanad-Mysore borders like Bewoor, Guntara, Maragaddha and Kaloor.

According to Wild Life Department sources, going by the sightings by survey teams in Wayanad in Kerala, Bandipore and Nagarhole in Karnataka and Mudumalai in Tamil Nadu, the elephant population was on the increase.

A central India government funded census of wild elephants will be conducted in the forests of Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka for three days beginning May 8.

The census team includes officials from the state forest department, members from the local community and elephant lovers.

P.S. Essa, who led the Kerala census operations in 1993, 1997 and 2002, said the elephant census team has introduced significant changes in census operation and the survey is now based on more scientific principles.

He noted that the wild elephant population in Kerala had been growing over the years.

“In 2002, the census revealed that wild elephants in Kerala numbered between 3,600 and 4,000.”

Elephant expert Jacob Cheeran, however, pointed out that that the operation takes place just before the monsoon when elephants from Karnataka and Tamil Nadu migrate to forests in Kerala.

“During this time, there is serious shortage of water and temperatures in the forests in Tamil Nadu and Karnataka are very high. As a result, there is large-scale migration of wild elephants from those states into Kerala,” said Cheeran.

Essa added that it was not enough to count the number of elephants. “These things should form a part of a larger elephant management policy. If not, it will have no positive effect.”

The Chandaka Elephant Sanctuary in Orissa is eagerly awaiting the reunion of an elephant calf with its mother, week after its separation from the group.

The seven-month-old calf was reportedly abandoned by its mother at a duck breeding centre near Ghatikia on the outskirts of Bhubaneswar.

As a herd of elephants sneaked into an agricultural university compound, the calf fell into a shallow well and injured itself. Forest rangers rescued the isolated elephant calf.

These elephants herd had reportedly come from the sanctuary.

According to wildlife experts, the calf was either abandoned by the herd or ignored by its mother during the retreat.

Forest officials are undertaking all possible attempts to reunite the two.

“Yesterday, we rescued the baby and released it in the natural habitat…after making two kilometers free we thought the herd would return. But they went in the other direction and the baby was abandoned. So, we thought that we would take it back to jungle,” said Akshya Patnaik, the Divisional Forest Officer with the Chandaka Elephant Sanctuary in Bhubaneswar.

On Sunday, forest officials took the calf to Godibari, the entry point of the elephant sanctuary, and the spot close to the place where the herd is located.

It is hoped that the herd will sense the missing member and accept it back into their fold.