Video: Elephants go full alert mode during California quake

When the ground shook, the elephants at the San Diego Zoo Safari Park were rock solid in their instincts. 

When a 5.2-magnitude earthquake rattled Southern California Monday morning (April 15, 2025), a herd of African elephants responded like the ultimate protective squad — forming an “alert circle” to shield their little ones.

At first, all was calm in the enclosure. 

The elephants were just doing elephant things — peaceful, chill. 

But then the earth gave a dramatic rumble, the camera trembled, and the adults snapped into action. 

Adult elephants named Ndlula, Umngani, and Khosi hustled into formation around the two calves, Zuli and Mkhaya.

It wasn’t chaos. It classic protective instinct.

"Alert circle"

This "alert circle" is classic elephant behavior: when danger is afoot, the big guys close ranks to guard the herd’s most vulnerable. 

Think of it like nature’s built-in panic room — with trunks and tusks.

Even as tremors were felt all the way up to Los Angeles, these gentle giants held their ground. 

With ears flared and trunks alert, they stayed on high alert, ready to fend off whatever invisible beast had shaken their world.

It’s an impressive demonstration of their intelligence and social bonding, explained Mindy Albright, the zoo’s curator of mammals. 

Elephants pick up vibrations through their feet. A study shows tha  foot stomping and low-frequency rumbling also generate seismic waves in the ground that can travel nearly 20 miles along the surface of the Earth, according to a study published in the Journal of the Acoustical Society of America (JASA).

So these savvy stompers might have known something was up before we humans even did.

In the footage, perhaps driven by sharp survival instincts, baby Zuli bee-lined it to the centre of the circle, while young Mkhaya, the only male calf, hesitated at the edge like.

Teen elephant Khosi gently nudged him back into the fold with her trunk. 

After a brief aftershock an hour later, the herd once again pulled together — just to be safe. No injuries, no damage. Just a powerful reminder that even in a quake, elephants are rock stars of the animal kingdom.

And honestly, we could all take a page from their playbook.