When elephants are driven from their migratory paths and natural habitats by industrialization, both humans and elephants pay a terrible price.
An elephant calf flees fireballs thrown by Indian villagers in Biplab Hazra’s award-winning image from 2017. Biplab Hazra/Quartz India A firebomb explodes as more rain down on a mother and her calf in the remote Indian village of Bishnupur.Caters News Railway authorities did not consider the ancient elephant pathways when they laid tracks in the Bankura district. As a result, every year numerous elephants are hit by speeding trains. Biplab Hazra/Quartz India Elephants cross a railway track in West Bengal’s Bankura district.Biplab Hazra/Quartz India Six elephants died — and several others were seriously injured — in a 2015 incident where the Kavi Guru Express of Northern West Bengal collided with an elephant herd. DownToEarth A group of men warn elephants off farmland with flaming torches.Caters News Elephants cross a highway in West Bengal’s Bankura district, dangerously close to humans.Biplab Hazra/Quartz India This elephant was killed by an electric fence illegally connected to a power line by angry farmers. Centre for Wildlife Studies A wild male elephant, who was separated from his herd, crosses a highway on the outskirts of Guwahati.India Today Boys run away from wild elephants near the India-Nepal border.Avijan Saha/Nikkei Asian Review Bystanders watch as a wild elephant walks along a busy street in Siliguri on Feb. 10, 2016. DIPTENDU DUTTA/AFP/Getty Images A farmer stands by the tell-tale marks of elephant feet across his rice paddy. The field lies in the path of elephant migration.Centre for Wildlife Studies A man works to secure elephant corridors through India's farmland. Wildlife Trust of India An Indian farmer in his banana field that was damaged by elephants moving through the area. Centre for Wildlife Studies The forest department often used fireballs to scare elephants away from human settlements.Biplab Hazra/Quartz India An elephant mother and calf walk by a sign that pleads with people to drive slowly and give elephants the right of passage. Wildlife Trust of India An elephant suffers a crushed diaphragm and suffocates on a farmer's simple fence. CEN/Prernabinda Onlookers contemplate how to remove the elephant from the fence it became entangled in — and caused its death. CEN/Prernabinda Villagers adorn the dead body of an elephant with flowers as it lies next to railway tracks on the outskirts of Guwahati in 2004. STR/AFP/Getty Images Some people in India may resort to drastic measures to secure their livelihoods, but most love and revere elephants. This 2010 photo shows Nandgopal, 8, and Lavindya, 4, asleep next to Giri, an orphaned elephant calf who was rescued from the Hosur Forest in southern India. Zoo staff where the elephant lives believe without this friendship the orphaned elephant would have died soon after being rescued. Shariq Allaqaband/ Barcroft India / Getty Images India's history with elephants runs deep. A caretaker looks on as an elephant rubs trunks with her daughter during the Sonepur Mela Fair near Patna, India. This fair has ancient origins — when people traded elephants and horses across the river Ganges. Daniel Berehulak/Getty Images
21 Devastating Photos Of India’s Accelerating Human-Elephant Conflict View GalleryIndia is home to an excess of 27,000 Asian elephants — over half of the world's population. The species is already endangered due to deforestation and industrialization of their habitat. This encroaching manmade boundary has caused a mounting conflict between man and elephant, and it is one that has wrought violence and heartbreak.
The Human-Elephant Conflict In Villages
The elephant's traditional routes from one forest to another throughout the country are called corridors and these are now blocked by developing villages, railroad tracks, mines, and agricultural areas. As a result of this, elephants are forced into Indian villages and farmland.
Farmers livelihoods are consequently destroyed when elephant herds trample or eat their crops, and in some cases, the farmers' lives are at stake by stampedes and attacks.
In fact, many elephants are learning to eat directly from the farms. Young elephants grow up grazing these easily accessible crops and it becomes a natural habit for them to continue to default to these farms as they grow older and have their own babies.
Some farmers in the West Bengal area have decided to take these matters into their own hands. They throw firebombs at the animals and chase them with stakes to keep the elephants at bay, and often, elephants die as a result of these methods.
"The villagers are desperate ... the per acre compensation for [elephant] damage is much lower than in other states," explains Biswajit Mohanty, secretary of the Wildlife Society of Odisha. "They try to throw those fireballs; they have steel rods dipped in kerosene and they have got a pointed tip and sometimes they poke the elephants when they come close."
Indeed, the Supreme Court of India has even ruled these methods as "barbaric".
Though India's Supreme Court has buckled down on elephant treatment on the farms, villagers aren't the only source of strife for the animals.
The Impacts Of Modern Life
The railroad between Siliguri and Alipurduar has claimed the lives of many elephants. In fact, between 2009 and 2017, approximately 120 of the total 655 recorded elephant deaths in this conflict were due directly to train accidents.
Yet, railway officials refuse to take the blame for the blood of elephant herds who attempted to cross the tracks. The trains travel at high-speeds and receive no warning when elephants — or any living thing — is blocking their way.
Photographer Atish Sen witnessed the scene where some elephant corpses were being removed. "I have never seen such a ghastly incident. Elephants were literally chopped into pieces," he said.
Even farmer's innocent fences can be a danger to the elephants, as they can become entangled, strangled on their own weight, and die.
Hope For A More Peaceful Coexistence In The Future
Organizations like Project Elephant, the World Land Trust, and the IFAW are working on legal protections for elephant corridors.
The Wildlife Trust of India has brought the plight of the animals into focus. "Elephants are a keystone species," The WTI writes on their website.
Their nomadic behavior – the daily and seasonal migrations they make through their home ranges – is immensely important to the environment." The group also rehabilitates people who have been affected by the overwhelming human-elephant conflict in these corridor areas.
In the meantime, alternative methods to discourage elephants from invading populated areas have found some success. Flashing disco lights keep elephants from entering farmland in Kerala's Wayanad district. Beehive fences, equipped with both real and fake beehives work in accordance with an elephant's natural fear of bees.
As long as humans continue to deliver humane and empathetic ingenuities to alleviate this human-elephant conflict, there should be a resolution to the violence — and perhaps a harmonious way of life for the elephants and humans alike — in the near future.
Next, find out why African Elephants are becoming tusk-less, then read about what Calvin Klein perfume has to do with a man-eating tigress in India.
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