Digger helps elephant escape mud pit in Kenya

CHYULU HILLS NATIONAL PARK, Kenya, March 3 (UPI) -- A wildlife photographer in Kenya captured video footage of a construction company using a digger to free an elephant from a mud pit.

Jeremy Goss, 30, a wildlife photographer and conservation scientist, said the elephant spent about 12 hours trapped in the mud pit on farmland bordering Chyulu Hills National Park before a Chinese construction company doing work nearby was called in to use their JCB digger to plow an escape path for the trapped pachyderm.

"[The] elephant had fallen into a well in hostile territory. Hostile because that community sees elephants as nothing more than a pest that destroys their crops. They wanted to kill and eat it but the Kenya Wildlife Service eventually managed to disperse the manic mob of hundreds of people," Goss wrote on Facebook.

"The rescue worked and the last we saw the bull was heading for the bush, tired but strong," he wrote.