The long march of an elephant herd in China may have been spurred by a dramatic shift in their ecosystem, wildlife biologist Sridhar Vijayakrishnan said. The principal scientist at the Centre for Wildlife Studies in Bengaluru told Manorama Online that the elephants might have ventured out of their home range in southwest Yunnan for want of food.

Wildlife biologists and enthusiasts across the world have been curiously tracking the strange exodus of 16 elephants from a reserve forest along the Chinese border with Myanmar that started in March 2020. The herd has covered about 500 kilometres so far.

Vijayakrishnan, who has been closely following the discussions about the unlikely migrants in the Asian Elephant Specialist Group of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), said that the elephants from the Mengyangzi Nature Reserve in Xishuangbanna might have been led astray by human intervention.

What is the latest on the elephant march?

They might have left the rainforests of Xishuangbanna in search of food and better living conditions. They might have encountered some serious disturbances in their natural habitat. Once they were out of their home, human interventions might have led them astray. Whatever it is, it is an extraordinary journey. This has to be seen in the context of the present conditions of Asian elephants.

They have reached the arid shrub forests of the Yunnan province. We do not know how long can they remain there. They had started their journey as early as February 2020. They returned home before setting out again a month later. I do not have any ground report apart from my frequent interactions with biologists including Ahimsa Campos-Arceiz from the Tropical Botanical Garden in Xishuangbanna. One reason why the elephants took the tour may be the pressure from humans. If the Chinese elephants left their rainforest habitat for a shrub forest, they are likely to have been confused. They have reached the point of no return. They are probably trying to move as far away from human presence as possible. That is a challenging situation.

Have you come across similar trips anywhere in the world?

Not in India. There have been some reports from Africa. Elephants frequently cross the border from India to Nepal and Bangladesh. Those incidents cannot be compared to what is happening in China though. Elephants from Chhattisgarh were found to have travelled to Madhya Pradesh three years ago. They never returned, probably because they faced fewer people in Madhya Pradesh.

What is the general situation of Asian elephants?

Asian elephants are found in 13 countries including India. The most stable herds are found in India and Sri Lanka. Herds in China, Malaysia, Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh, Thailand, Sumatra, Laos, Cambodia, Myanmar and Vietnam are not constant. Laos and Vietnam have hardly 25 to 30 elephants. Those herds may vanish anytime. There are only 200 to 250 elephants in China. It is not unlikely that Asian elephants may be confined to India and Sri Lanka in future. Elephants are protected by the Western Ghats. In India, 50 percent of elephant habitat has been lost since 1970, according to official estimates.

What about elephant corridors?

Those corridors connect shrunken elephant habitats. Those were part of a larger ecosystem the elephants were familiar with. Those habitats were lost for a variety of reasons. Still the elephants have to follow the familiar paths. Elephants have a range of 150 to 200 square kilometres when they are part of a herd. Solitary animals cover up to 800 square kilometres. That is their home range. If that habitat is disturbed, they will react. They will only try to avoid humans. They do not usually attack humans. They are only looking for food. Elephants and other fauna know no national borders. They will keep walking for food.

Elephants are big strong beasts. They need a lot of food. Why do they live in herds?

Elephants and other animals who live in herds have safety in their minds. Elephants take good care of their calves. Calves are vulnerable to predator attacks until they are two years old. I have seen adult elephants forming rings around calves to protect them from wolves.

Why do female elephants lead the herds?

 Male elephants leave the herd when they are 12 or 13 years old. They return only for mating. Elephants are creatures with good memory. Female elephants do not leave the herd because they have to tend to the younger ones. As they age, they have a better understanding of the herd and the habitat. They can transmit their knowledge to the next generation. That ensures that females always continue to be the leaders. It does not mean that a single matriarch always leads the herd. I have seen other females taking over in some situations.

Are human intervention and the shrinking of habitats causing changes in the lives of elephants?

Even wild elephants are changing with the times. Some of the herds in Valparai frequently pass by farmlands without damaging the crops. We have also observed how elephants rest in the day and venture out at night to raid farms. They might have realized that walking into a ready-to-eat farmland and feasting for 4 to 5 hours is easier than foraging for 16 hours in the forest.

Can wild elephants be tamed?

It is a wrong notion that captive elephants can be tamed like dogs or cats. Dogs and cats have co-evolved with humans through generations over thousands of years. They have undergone genetic changes. That is not the case with elephants. All of our captive elephants have been captured from the wild. There are no second-generation captive elephants, except in the camps run by the Tamil Nadu forest department. The captive elephants among us have all the genes of a wild elephant. How can you tame them? You could say they are trained.

Are we seeing a new trend of male elephants hanging out together?

That is a misconception. Researchers have recorded groups of male elephants earlier.

What are the challenges faced by elephants?

Every year, between 150 and 200 elephants are killed because of human intervention in India alone. They are run over by trains or other vehicles, shot or poisoned. Even capturing is a kind of killing. They cease to be wild elephants once they are captured.

Reports suggest that the number of elephants is on the rise.

In some areas, yes. But there are areas where the number is going down. We need a more scientific census of elephants. We have to pursue scientific surveys corresponding to dense forests and open shrub forests. Sticking to the same survey method everywhere is unscientific.

Can an elephant herd ever return to its natural habitat?

They can. There are also incidents where they could not. Elephants tranquilized and left in the forest have sometimes traced their way to the same area. There are elephants who lost their way, especially when they faced human intervention on the way. More than the elephants, it is the human intervention which is the crucial factor here. We have a good model in people who live in the forest for generations. They always keep a clear distance from elephant paths. They are seldom attacked by elephants because they follow an unwritten rule of mutual respect.

How do elephants communicate in a herd?

They have many methods. They trumpet, murmur and howl. They also talk to each other by stomping on the ground. They adopt those communication models when someone in the herd goes astray. Elephants can also communicate to each other with sound signals that are inaudible to human ears. Such communication methods help them find their way and to follow the herd. They also use chemical communication to find their way back home. They can identify the path they had taken.

There are videos on social media which claim that charging animals do not attack if we do not exhibit fear.

Fear factor is important in animal behaviour. They can identify the fear in their prey. However, that behaviour has to be studied in detail in case of elephants. That is a game of chance at this point. It is wiser not to stand still and get trampled by an elephant. We do not know the context of the videos we watch. If the elephant had been attacked earlier and they identified the attacker, they might go their way. We do not know the circumstances which led to the behaviour being claimed in those videos.

What about the legendary revenge of elephants?

Just another myth. Elephants do not avenge anyone. Their only motivation is food. They are hardly concerned about humans. They react to the changes brought about by humans in their ecosystems, not to humans per se. Elephants do not ambush anyone. We have to study the situations in which elephants get violent. We have to stop labelling them with violent terms like ‘Kolakolli’. We also have to rest the myths that you can evade a charging elephant by running around in circles. If an elephant wants to charge someone, they will get them. As I said, elephants react to the situations in which it finds itself. It is always a good idea to keep a distance of 70 to 80 metres from an elephant. In case it charges, we would get some time to flee. Some people freeze when they see an elephant charging at them. They have mostly fallen victims.

The other legend of elephantine memory?

Of course they have good memory. Once a herd which ventured into the village in Valparai was chased by a crowd. The elephants ran for their lives. However, there was a bridge on their way. Even before they saw the bridge, they slowed down. Each of them examined the bridge with its trunk before crossing through it. Then they picked up speed again.

You have studied the relation between the stress levels of the animals and their dung.

I did that while I was an M.Sc. student. I was studying the stress in wild elephants while they passed through or lived in a human habitat. I examined dung and identified hormones. I tracked every elephant and recorded where they went, what they ate and what they went through. The aim of the study was to understand the periods in which the stress hormone increased in their body. I found that the hormone level increased when they were chased by the people. As a follow-up, I studied the behaviour pattern of female elephants.

How can we reduce the conflict between humans and elephants?

Electric fencing is a good solution, but the problem is its maintenance. The government or some other organisation may install the fences but they invariably go into disuse with vines creeping over them. I have seen the effective use of electric fences in Sri Lanka. I have seen a herd of about 70 elephants going back from the vicinity of a ripe field when they saw that it was protected by an electric fence. Village-level committees in those areas maintain the fences by clearing the forest around them. We could also do it.

Should we abstain from cultivating crops that attract elephants?

It is not practical to tell farmers to change their crop patterns. I met a farmer as part of my research in 2011. He had switched to onion farming after elephants ate up all his sugar cane and corn. What happened next? Deer raided his farm and ate all his onions. He switched to sweet potatoes. They became food for wild boar. Whatever you cultivate, that is food for some animal. We need a more balanced approach.

Why did you choose elephants as your research subject?

I have been listening to elephant tales and seeing the animals since I could remember. Maybe that is the reason.