Mongolian herders sing to reunite rejected baby camels with their mothers

There's a tradition out in Mongolia's Gobi Desert that sounds almost too tender to be real, yet herding families have kept it alive for generations. It's called Khööslökh, sometimes translated as the "camel coaxing ritual," and the idea at its core is simple. When a mother camel won't accept her newborn, someone sings to her.It happens more than you'd expect. A calf is born and the mother turns away, refusing to nurse it. Or a calf has lost its own mother and needs another camel to take it in. Either way, herders don't force the issue. They sing instead, usually with the morin khuur, that low, mournful horsehead fiddle, playing softly alongside. The melody is slow and aching. According to herders, the ritual often works.