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VIDEO: A Peek Inside an Elephant's Secret Life

05/14/2010 at 05:44 PM EDT

Have you ever seen an elephant up close, in its natural habitat? Saba Douglas-Hamilton has. The zoologist, born to elephant experts living in Kenya, has been working and playing around the world's largest land mammals since she was a child.

In Animal Planet's production of Secret Life of Elephants, airing this Sunday, May 16, at 8 p.m. ET/PT, Douglas-Hamilton takes viewers on a special journey through Kenya's National Samburu Reserve, where the research team from Save the Elephants tracks the creature's movements through a cell phone network.

Douglas-Hamilton gets to see elephants in their most intimate moments, when the giant mammals display behaviors that aren't much unlike human ones. They're compassionate, caring beings capable of showing empathy and grief, as in the film, when elephants gather around the body of a dead mother elephant to acknowledge her passing, even though she's not a part of their herd.

"They're a keystone species, which means that they're far more important for an eco-system than just in themselves," Douglas-Hamilton tells PEOPLEPets.com.

Check out our video interview with Douglas-Hamilton above, and catch Secret Life of Elephants this Sunday on Animal Planet!