SIZI Stung By A Bee Inside of Her Trunk
To put it lightly, bees are awesome. These industrious insects have been around for roughly 125 million years (give or take 15 million years or so) and although bee numbers are sadly declining, the remaining survivors continue to act as invaluable resources to our planet and its other residents in numerous ways. Bees may be important, but getting stung by a bee is not fun at all … especially is the bee sting is UP your trunk!
That is unfortunately what happened to Sizi, an elephant in the care of Wild is Life Trust and ZEN, a wildlife sanctuary for orphaned and injured animals in Zimbabwe. A bee stung her 70 centimeters INSIDE of her trunk and at first, her caregivers couldn’t figure out what was wrong. She was playing with her friends and then suddenly she screamed and cried out, according to Wild is Life Trust. She went become agitated and was not able to drink out of her bottle. If that wasn’t enough, her trunk was partially paralyzed and she was clearly in a lot of pain.
Elephants are very wise animals and they are known to avoid bees. In fact, some farmers keep bees nests around their crops to deter wild elephants from crushing them. Seeing how poor Sizi reacted to the sting, we totally understand why these animals would be so wary! The good news is elephants are known to pass on information to their friends and family, so hopefully none of the other ellies will have to experience such pain.