The young calf had her head down, and her trunk was draped across the mother's back when Richard Roberts, from the Mara Elephant Project, arrived.
After examining the dead mother more closely, he found a poisoned spear wound in her cheek, indicating a fatal attack by ivory poachers.
The mother was still nursing the calf before the lethal, fast-acting poison stopped her heart, and now, as she lay motionless on the dry plains, the baby was left without a source of food