A new study has found that elephants bury their babies in tea estates as they couldn’t bury the carcasses in villages as there is high human disturbance, and neither could they do it inside the forest where there are no pre-built trenches and knowing their inability to dig big holes in this biogeographic zone.
This is the first of its kind study published in the Journal of Threatened Taxa where Parveen Kaswan a senior forest officer and Akashdeep Roy of the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER), Pune brought out many ‘novel’ elephant behaviors to the limelight.
Elephant calf burial is reported in African literature but remains absent from the Asian context. The study reported calf burials by Asian Elephants in the eastern Himalayan floodplains of the northern Bengal landscape. The study area consists of fragmented forests, tea estates, agricultural lands, and military establishments.
The duo wanted to study the cause of death of the elephant calves, understand the rationale behind the unique carcass burial strategy, and observe the postmortem behavior among elephants near the burial sites.
They studied five case reports of calf burials by elephants and aimed to understand the perimortem strategy and postmortem behavior of Asian Elephants. “The major findings reflect that the carcasses were carried by trunks and legs for a distance before being buried in a ‘legs-upright-position’” the study found out. All the tea estates were from North Bengal.
Many novel behaviors came to the limelight as elephants use non-forested areas more frequently.
“The data was collected by Mr Parveen Kaswan – one of the park managers in the north Bengal landscape. While discussing my Ph.D. project (on human-elephant conflict), we discussed the scope of this novel behavior among elephants. It took us around 16 months to review the literature and build 5 case reports for our manuscript” Akashdeep Roy told EastMojo.
The authors of the study further investigated the underlying reason for calf deaths through postmortem examinations. Direct human intervention was not recorded in any of the five deaths. Through opportunistic observation, digital photography, field notes, and postmortem examination reports, they suggest that the carcasses were buried in an abnormal recumbent style irrespective of the reason for the calf’s death.
Through long-term observation, they reported that the elephants in this region avoid the paths where carcasses were buried.
The herd transported the dead babies with their trunks and feet, then placed them in irrigation ditches on tea plantations and covered them with soil.
“The most surprising finding of this study is the positioning of elephant carcasses during burial. In all five cases, the legs were upright, and the head, trunk, and dorsal parts were fully buried. Due to the limited depth of the irrigation drains in tea estates, the legs of the dead calves were visible above ground level. We observed footsteps of herd members on both sides of the trench and over the soil covering the body, indicating a combined effort in burying the carcasses. While burying the carcass, the elephant herd vocalized for 30–40min, as the tea estate night security guards reported” The study found out.
“Our findings also suggest that the modified land-use types, such as tea estates, offer connectivity and provide extended forest cover for elephant movement,” the authors say.
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The interesting finding of our study was the positioning of the carcasses in a ‘legs-upright-position’ in the limited space in the tea estates. “The locals and the conservation community often perceive these burials as ‘accidental’. The ‘strange’ positioning of the carcass could be explained for better grip for the herd member(s) to hold and lay the calf in the trench. This strategic behavior also reflects the care and affection of the member(s) towards the deceased. This behavior suggests that in a situation of space crunch, the herd member(s) prioritize the head for the burial before the feet” the study found.
The authors have clarified that all observations were opportunistic and must not be generalized for the entire study area for the regions of similar biogeographic and environmental conditions.
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Meh!