Human-Wildlife Conflict in India: Elephants Kill 3 Locals This Month

Elephants and humans in India have been at odds with each other. The ongoing conflict recently worsened after the gentle giants killed three locals this month.

Human-Wildlife Conflict: Elephant vs. Humans

Three deaths reportedly due to elephants have been reported this month in the same region of India and it has raised additional questions about the surge in human-wildlife conflict. In the most recent incident, a woman named Mehbuba Alam Ahmed was taking her morning walk near Goalpara in the Indian state of Assam when the largest land mammals on Earth attached her.

The elephant crushed the woman and authorities later discovered the dead body. The nearest hospital received her body for an inspection. The event happened just a few days after an elephant in the state's Subankhata region murdered two more people.

Haren Boro was reportedly stomped by the enraged elephant and perished instantly. Kalpajyoti Das attempted to flee, but the elephant caught up with him and he suffered the same fate. The authorities later recovered the victims' bodies.

Conflict between people and elephants is becoming more and more of a problem in India. Although there are numerous possible causes, researchers agree that habitat loss is the main culprit. Elephant habitats are getting smaller due to human population growth and industrialization, forcing the animals closer to people.

Fragmented habitats can lead elephants to go onto farmlands in search of food and water, ruining significant crops for local people as they do so. The conflict can also be due to "crop raiding incidents." Retaliation against elephants may result from this as well, escalating the conflict.

Elephants are typically friendly animals, but if disturbed, they may turn into quite vicious predators. These enormous beasts can weigh up to 8,000 pounds, and their 700-pound lifting capacity comes from the 40,000 muscles in their trunks.

Human-wildlife conflict is one important and growing threat to the long-term survival of some of the most famous animals in the world, such as elephants and tigers. When humans and wildlife interact negatively, such as when there is a loss of property, livelihood, or even life, this is referred to as a . These species may eventually become extinct as a result of defensive and retaliatory killing.

These encounters cause suffering for both humans and wildlife who are directly impacted by the conflict, but they can also have a worldwide influence, with organizations like corporations and sustainable development agencies feeling its aftereffects.

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Elephants Remember Traumatic Experiences From the Civil War

Elephants are not just gentle giants. They are also smart and have great memory. Elephants at Mozambique's Gorongosa National Park, a protected wildlife area, probably remember things better than some people. The nation's 15-year civil war, which raged from 1977 to 1992, is so deeply rooted that it is genetically imprinted in the remaining elephants.

Due to the widespread murder by the warring soldiers who traded ivory to buy weaponry for their protracted conflict, an increasing number of elephants at Gorongosa are giving birth without their second most distinctive feature, their tusks. The species is being skillfully modified by natural selection to make it less desirable to poachers.

In addition, compared to the populations of elephants in Kenya, the trunk-swinging pachyderms of Gorongosa are more prone to charge at people driving Jeeps and Land Rovers because they consider them death on wheels.

In the elephants' view, the peace that has been achieved in the thirty years since the conclusion of the war is flimsy and prone to change.

In Gorongosa, the younger elephants learn from the more experienced ones. According to Joyce Poole, scientific director of Elephant Voices, who has spent more than 50 years researching elephants, many of them are old enough to remember vehicles carrying soldiers and they teach it to the younger ones, leaving them with "transgenerational trauma," and the animals also have a little bit of attitude.