A baby elephant was squeezed into the back of a four-seater plane after being rescued from poachers who slaughtered its entire family in Central Africa.
According to a recent YouTube video, a baby elephant is seen flying in a small aircraft alongside its pilot Gary Roberts, who is an American nurse and missionary.
The Mail Online reports that the little creature was the only survivor of a massacre occurred last year near the border between Chad and Cameroon where 100 elephants were killed by poachers, including the calf's entire family.
Roberts, who visited the massacre area stated that it was a terrible sight.
"It was really just piles of bones that were left because the meat had been extracted," Roberts told BBC.
He further added, "There were large pools of blood on the ground that you could still see from so many animals." Poachers had taken the tusks and the carcasses were stripped off by the locals there.
It was Roberts' second visit to that place when he brought the baby elephant, which was injured and tied to a tree. While returning back with the calf, it got a nickname - 'Max'.
Roberts added that it was a risky task to fly with a baby elephant. "With an animal that size, you can feel its weight shifting in the aircraft," Roberts said.
The footage was captured while Roberts was taking Max to his house for medical treatment, but it was uploaded online only on 10 September. The video shows the 353lb elephant in the back of a four-seater plane, playing and throwing its trunk over Roberts, who responds to it by stroking its head with affection.
"He was quite interested in playing with my controls, he would put his trunk forward and feel my hand and touch the controls and of course feel my face," Roberts told BBC.
Sadly, they didn't get much time to get along as Max died after a few days. It is said that the reason of its death was the trauma of losing family and also the cow's milk, which was fed to it in the village.
Watch the video below:
