Last August, in a remote part of Kenya, rangers heard a commotion of elephants. They investigated and found a baby elephant trapped in a deep well at Korbesa.

Rescuers waited for her mother, but none ever came. So they took the baby, tired and weak from her ordeal, to the Sheldrick Wildlife Trust for care.

One year later, “she is one of the cleverest — and bossiest — elephants we have ever met,” says the Trust on its website. “We feel certain that we have a future matriarch on our hands.”