Do you love elephants?

Then you've got to see this. Sorry if it's old news to everyone - this happened in the spring of 2010 - but I hadn't heard about this till I saw the documentary on Norwegian TV just a couple days ago. You can still see it on nrk.no, here, through this coming Sunday. That version has Norwegian commentary, though. The whole thing is on Youtube with the original comments in English, just look at the bottom of this post and click through. If you love elephants and you haven't seen this documentary, you just absolutely have to. :-)

It's called Miracle at the Zoo and it's the story of one of the Thai elephants kept at Taronga Zoo in Sydney, Porntip. She is their herd's matriarch and last year, at the age of 18, she was due to give birth for the first time. But like many first time mothers experience, she had a very difficult delivery. Just watch the documentary, it's beyond fantastic.

And it really makes me think about what kind of thoughts and feelings these very intelligent animals have towards their human carers. Keep your eye on Porntip when the keepers intervene during her labor and afterwards ... it's really moving. As I've mentioned before, I believe in protected contact for zoo elephants, for several reasons, but ... yeah, this is very moving.

Fullscreen here. The documentary's in five parts, the other four will come up as suggestions when you click through to this first one. Enjoy. :-)