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We saw a shift in the relationship between Ramba and Rana the other day, and it was quite sweet. All three girls had access to the full habitat. They were going back and forth, hanging out and grazing for a bit, then meandering somewhere else.

At one point, Ramba met up with Maia. They were interacting nicely, and Maia put her trunk up on Ramba’s head and was ‘eating her head’ (we’ll talk about this more in another post). Maia began to put a little bit of her weight onto Ramba’s head, and Ramba rumbled, not 100% a content rumble, but not an unhappy noise either. Nothing that had us concerned and Ramba showed no interest in walking away.

All of a sudden, Rana came walking up at a fast pace, made one of her grunting noises, and came up quickly upon Maia and Ramba. Rana didn’t do anything aggressive but seemed to come over to protect Ramba, although Ramba was fine. All three stood together for a while, and Rana put her butt between Maia and Ramba, a protective thing we have seen other peacemaker elephants do.

Since then, Rana and Ramba have spent much more time side by side, literally touching as they stand there. Up until now, Rana had still seemed a little reserved in wanting to open up to Ramba. We were assuming it was because of how her relationship went with Maia and Guida. You could tell she wanted to be close, she certainly knows how to be affectionate (part of the problem with Maia and Guida), but she wasn’t letting herself go there. We are hoping this was the hump she needed to get over to realize it was all ok with Ramba, that she wanted to be her friend and she wasn’t going to push her away if Rana showed her love. We are very happy to see the continued growth in both of them.

Photo: Rana (left) and Ramba (right)