Maria finished logging the last of her notes and headed out for the final headcount before lockup. That was when she noticed something unusual. The elephant calves were splashing in the shallow pool. Two females browsed calmly near the hay rack. The elephant bull was stripping bark from a log.
But Lila was separated from them, positioned near the far back corner of the enclosure. She wasn’t resting. She wasn’t foraging. She wasn’t acknowledging the others at all. Instead, she stood completely still, her body angled sharply toward a specific patch of ground.