Elephants form some of the most intimate social relationships seen outside primates. The female-led society provides a high level of care to its members: Little elephants are bathed and carried over obstacles, and mothers frequently touch their young with their trunks. If disturbed, calves and the matriarch leader are protected at the center of the herd.
There are stories of "mourning" behavior among elephants when a family member dies. Elephants have been seen trying to coax dead young back to their feet, burying dead calves under branches and even carrying the bones of dead family members.
Hazel Thompson, a forest warden in Cameroon, once told me the story of a baby forest elephant who had been captured by villagers and kept in a cage of wooden stakes in the village. At night the baby's family group stormed the village and bust the baby out of its prison. The story made the Cameroon papers.