Human baby raised by elephants, plausible?

I plan on writing a story about a human born in the wild and raised by wild animals. I have heard of stories of real humans being raised by wild animals, mostly in Africa. I have also done some research on wild animals and figured out that, at least in Africa and Asia, elephants are the best wild animals for raising humans.

They have lots of pros and very few cons.

Pros:

• Protection from predators, most lion prides won't even bother with elephants
• Cross nursing, one of the elephant documentaries I watched was about an orphaned baby elephant being raised by a herd other than the one that had its mom
• Prehensile trunks
• Rich milk
• Very little risk of illness (at least compared to being raised by carnivores)
• Injury risk is low
• Can sense vibrations through the ground as well as hear

This is what I think would happen in the best and worst case scenarios of a human being raised in the wilderness:

Best case scenario (raised by elephants if humans aren't nearby):

The baby easily survives and grows up playing with baby elephants. The human ends up easily being able to call to elephants.

Worst case scenario (raised by lions):

The baby has to be super tough to survive. The lion's diet is dangerous to humans. I'm not saying meat itself is dangerous but lions eat raw meat and rotten meat. Both are dangerous, especially rotten meat, but even fresh meat could make a human ill if eaten raw. The baby not only has to survive very bad illnesses and vitamin deficiencies (especially vitamin C deficiency which makes the blood vessels not hold as well and thus bleeding occurs more easily) but also a lot of bites and clawing wounds from not only lionesses but also cubs that want to play and occasionally the male or males. There is no way the baby could survive in a lion pride, even if the lions did not hunt down the baby.

Is it plausible that a human baby would be raised in and survive in an elephant herd?

posted about 7 years ago

Caters‭

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