A protective elephant was caught on camera kicking a calf out of the way after it got too close to its own baby.

The video was recorded by a visitor to the San Diego Wildlife Safari Park in California.

In the footage, which was recently shared online, two elephant calves can be seen hurrying across the enclosure alongside each other.

But on the right-hand side of the screen, a fully-grown elephant turns abruptly to face them.

It storms towards the pair of newborns who quickly separate.

Then the adult elephant raises its trunk to nudge one of the unsuspecting calves out of the way which causes it to skid across the ground.

The video, which was recorded by a visitor to the San Diego Wildlife Safari Park in California, shows two elephant calves hurrying across the enclosure alongside each other before an adult storm towards them

It lifts its front left leg and hits the back of one of the unsuspecting calves which are facing the other way

The fully-grown mammal lifts it’s front left leg and hits the calf in the back once again before using a scooping motion to aggressively kick it down a slope.

The youngster stumbles and crashes to the floor with its legs and trunk flailing as it lets out a distress call.

Visitors to the zoo draw a sharp intake of breath as the calf stumbles and crashes to the floor with its legs and trunk flailing before it lets out a distress call

A second adult, who is chewing on a bamboo stick and is thought to be the calf’s mother, bustles over to investigate and raises its trunk as if to check that the calf is unharmed

A second adult, who is chewing on a bamboo stick and is thought to be the calf’s mother, bustles over to investigate and raises its trunk to the calf as if to check that it is unharmed.

The group continues to meander and the video ends shortly after.

The clip was first recorded in December 2018 just after two elephants had given birth around the same time but has recently emerged online.

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