Kala was still nursing when Marine World bargained with Dickerson Park Zoo to bring the baby to California. In his natural home, Kala would have nursed until he was 4 or 5 and stayed with his mother until he was a teenager.
Female elephants stay with their mothers in their matriarchal herd for their entire lives.
To take him from his mother at this time would be cruel, unnatural, and detrimental to his social development. Garrison now believes that the trauma of separation affected Kala's immune system, making him vulnerable to infection. Babies are weaned before they're past infancy, torn from their grieving mothers, and sent out to make money for their captors. Too often, the results are disastrous. Benjamin drowned in a pond in Texas.