Another baby elephant got in a bit of a pickle recently, when it got itself stuck deep in a muddy hole.

Fortunately, this story has a happier ending — it was rescued by wildlife rangers in Malaysia, and was happily reunited with its family eventually.

Stuck deep in a mud hole

Details of the daring rescue was reported on Friday (Dec. 27) in a Facebook post by Sen Nathan, assistant director of the Sabah Wildlife Department.

Earlier that day, Nathan said they received a call about a Bornean pygmy elephant calf that had fallen into a mud hole at a plantation at Kinabatangan in Sabah.

One of the photos he uploaded showed the hole to be particularly deep, with only part of the calf's head and body visible above the muddy water.

Nathan added that the poor calf was trapped "with no possible moving space".

No one really knows how it got itself into such a sticky situation:

The situation was made even more urgent as the rest of the herd, including the calf's mother, was hovering nearby, worried about the baby's safety.

The herd was "helplessly surrounding the spot and vocalising after [failed] attempts" at rescuing it.

Upon arriving, Nathan stated that the Wildlife Rescue Unit had to scare away the herd so they could carry out the rescue operation safely.

To free the calf, plantation staff had originally offered a backhoe to assist wildlife rangers, according to The Star.

But rangers eventually decided to take things into their own hands and manually worked to enlarge the hole as time was running out and the calf was getting stressed.

Hauled out and reunited with family

A video Nathan posted showed rangers and possibly plantation staff surrounding the mud hole. The calf can be heard crying in distress.

After much persistence, the hole was eventually widened sufficiently for the calf to be hauled out.

After making sure the elephant did not sustain any severe injury, the juvenile was reunited with its mother, who came by again a few minutes later.

Here's a photo of the happy pair.

Phew.

You can see Nathan's full post here.