Want to learn more about the natural world? Here’s how I started

https://www.instagram.com/p/B1teRFzl51W/

In the dense forests of south India, you can hear an elephant much before you see the animal. It could be the crackling of a branch, a low throaty rumble or the sound of a grumbling stomach. So while walking through the forest, you have to constantly be vigilant for any noise that stands out and separate these sounds from ones that you make, such as the sound of your own feet landing on dried leaves and those walking with you, and always be aware of which direction you are headed towards.

In India, Asian elephants are protected under the Wildlife (Protection) Act 1972 that dictates that if a person is found guilty of hunting, harming or trading in elephants they can be imprisoned and/or imposed a fine. There are about 27,300 wild Asian elephants in India, most of whom live in the state of Karnataka, followed by Assam and Kerala. Elephants occupy fairly large home ranges to meet their nutritional requirements, the size of which depends on several factors such as the availability of food, water and threats from human habitation and fragmentation. And as their natural habitat’s shrink, elephants are increasingly coming in contact with humans, competing with them for space and resources. So much so that there are over 400 human and 100 elephant casualties reported annually in India.

The lifespan of an elephant is similar to humans. Female elephants have a gestation period of between 20 to 22 months, delivering one calf every four to five years. Not just the calf’s mother, but other older female elephants help raise the calf. If the calf is a male, he departs from the herd when he is about 10 to 15 years to live a solitary life or in the company of other male elephants. From the age of about fifteen, males come into a state of musth, a period wherein they experience a surge in their reproductive hormone testosterone. During this time they actively seek out females and are more temperamental and prone to aggression towards other adult males. Female elephants, meanwhile, spend their entire lives in a herd.

https://www.instagram.com/p/B_zqXDfl0Pg/

Dominant male elephants enjoy higher reproductive success. These males are larger and stronger than the others. So in an effort to climb the social hierarchy ladder, male elephants seek out high quality food, mostly found in cropfields. To evade some of the risk associated with being in a new landscape, the younger males seek the company of older knowledgeable bulls. Elephants also develop new behaviour to avoid coming in close contact with people such as taking refuge in water bodies during the day and feeding and being more active at night.

I had worked on a project aimed at reducing negative interactions between people and elephants in places where they co-occur for the last two-and-a-half years. When I started, I only had a basic understanding about elephants and I had a lot to learn fast. The recommended readings I received were mostly scientific papers and a few books. While I enjoyed the books, being new to the field I found the technical writing of scientific papers hard to understand. There is also so much literature available on elephants, it’s hard to know where to start.

Here, I thought I’d write about how I went about learning about elephants, what it means to live in close proximity to wildlife and the ways I developed to help me begin.

Get involved in what you’re interested:

My first exposure to elephants was not with these majestic creatures themselves, but with people who shared the land with them. They told us about how elephants crossed the forest border and entered their farmlands to feed on crops at night. Incredulously, these forays were mostly when crops were nearly ready to be harvested or when the crop had already been harvested and was drying. To protect their crops, farmers would spend the night in makeshift machaans in trees with their dogs nearby to alert them in case an elephant was in the vicinity. They would also make wind-chimes from old bottles as an early warning system. In most places, the farmers would have an early dinner and go in groups to their machaans and return home only in the morning during daylight. Some people have even stopped cultivating certain tracks of land altogether because elephants would frequently visit them.

But interspersed with these experiences was a glimpse of life that seemed to turn back the clock. People in small villages were not in a hurry and took the time to talk to us and to one another, they were warm-hearted, simple-minded people. With what they had they were very generous and once they got to know us their faith and support helped boost our morale.

I first saw what caused friction between people and elephants, and it made me very aware of the human aspect of learning about wildlife. Sometimes getting directly into the thick of a situation is a great learning experience since you are open to new experiences and information without any preconceived notions and it’s easier to take in.

Learn as much as you can about the topic

The people who have lived on the Indian subcontinent have had a long standing relation with elephants. There are cave paintings dating back to about 6,000 BC that tentatively suggest that elephants had been domesticated. However, more concrete evidence of domestication comes from the Harappan civilisation, around 2,500 BC, from seals imprinted with elephants.

There are also newspaper articles, scientific papers and reports, such as Gajah a bi-annual publication. Attend events, join groups and forums — cast a wide net. Be aware of the source of information you consume, because the information you consume and what you choose to accept will greatly influence your thinking. Follow specific tags and accounts on social media. Our page was called @frontierelephants, some of the other pages I followed were @sreedharelephas and @ganeshraghunathan. On African elephants ElephantVoices is a treasure trove of information.

During this time, we had also been setting up camera traps in the forest. We worked in the scrub jungle forest of India’s Eastern hats, the last largest remaining scrub forest for elephants among their range countries. These are dense forests with sometimes a seemingly impenetrable undergrowth of thorny bushes. Being a dry area there were lots of ticks that are impossibly small to see that leave a bite that itches for weeks later. While in the forests we also spotted sambar, spotted deer, mongoose, wild boar and dhole.

There are also small communities that live within protected areas. One day as we were leaving the forest and passing through one such village we spotted three elephants on the outskirts. We stopped to observe the elephants, and within a few short moments a small crowd of mostly young boys had gathered around us. All the three elephants were males — one older and two younger. The two younger male elephants or bulls were engrossed in a play fight, clashing their tusks and head butting. They went on like this for some time trying to ascertain who was the stronger one. Small fights like these help to prepare these bulls for when they must compete with older bulls for mating rights. The older male, on the other hand, seemed uninterested and continued feeding. After a little while, one of the younger two bulls turned his attention to the older bull. Not to fight, but in a display of sub-dominance. He turned around so that his back was facing the older bull and slowly walked towards him.

https://www.instagram.com/p/CTmadLrM2pL/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link

We settled by the side of the road hoping to get a better look at the elephants. As darkness descended, the oldest male came to drink water from the village tank. He began drinking from one tank, splashing an equal amount of water on himself. When he was done, he moved sidewards towards the next one, all the while keeping an eye on us. Next, one of the younger males came to drink water. There seemed to be a slight tension in the air with both people and elephants being ready to retreat if the need arose. Yet all was quiet, the only noise was the young boys talking among themselves and the sound of the elephant sucking up water through his trunk and exhaling it into his mouth. But soon the sound of a vehicle approaching intruded on the quiet of the moment and people got up, shining light and making noise to warn the people about the elephants a mere few feet from the road. The elephants, too, sensed that their time was up and retreated. Once the vehicle had passed and the situation had quietened down one of the younger elephants came back to drink water, but he was clearly agitated. Barely managing to quench his thirst, he quickly retreated.

When no one is around is when elephants are most themselves. We tried to capture glimpses of this behaviour through motion sensing cameras. Once a male elephant was walking near the camera and as he moved into the frame, he paused. He sniffed the ground around him and occasionally lifted his trunk to sniff the air, probably sensing the infrared emitting camera. Nervous to move forward, he moved behind a few small trees and hid his face behind the tiny canopy. He was not able to see the camera, but he did not realise that we could see his whole body. When an older males walked by, probably one who was familiar with these cameras and knew that would not harm him, he walked by. The younger elephant immediately walks over to him eager to cross the camera with this more experienced elephant between him and the alien object.

https://www.instagram.com/tv/CWPpxTSAyD5/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link

Whenever we saw interactions between elephants, we would debate what the elephants might have been communicating. We would also talk to the forest department staff about the elephant’s history to put their behaviour into context. There are also databases of elephant gestures and communication that one can refer to, however this has been recorded for African elephants.

Look at the situation through a different angle

There are many different ways to learn about elephants — through history and culture, their behaviour, their relation with people or their relation to their ecosystem. It’s good to think about if what you are learning about has spillover effects in other domains. Is this a phenomenon that occurs in other places? What are peoples’ response to it there? What are the different solutions implemented and how have they played out? How do different bodies of knowledge approach and comprehend this? The International Union for Conservation of Nature’s Species Survival Commission website provides information on the underlying social, cultural and economic contexts of human-wildlife conflicts for various species.

In my experience, the way community members, researchers and forest department staff spoke about elephants was different. Sometimes there is a tendency to look at things from only one perspective and being open to other points of view can give you a holistic understanding of the topic.

https://www.instagram.com/p/CQDzvQrgtzY/

The last one standing

Elephants have had to adjust to changes in their habitat due to increasing urbanisation, fragmentation and other threats. They have also had to overcome complex barriers and structures to move between landscapes. When their behaviour has led to conflict with people they were driven back into the forest or from one place to another, causing a great deal of stress in many elephants as they had to move into unfamiliar territories. Yet, despite this apparent intolerance, when one of these elephants died, people would come to show their reverence.

Conservation often feels like a race against time, so it is important to remind yourself to also focus on the positive from time-to-time, this could be from gaining inspiration from news that focuses on positive narratives and solutions, and looking back on your own journey and remembering changes you have been a part of. For instance, we helped farmers set up community fences during the cropping season so that their crops were protected and the land was available for elephants during the remaining months. We also helped them achieve a higher price for the produce they were able to sell.

Through everything, the moments that stand out for me were the ones where we got to observe elephants in their natural habitat without them knowing we were there. The first time I saw an elephant on the field was when we went patrolling with the forest department staff at night. All we heard was the crackle of a branch and we immediately stopped to scan our surroundings. Sure enough there he was, an older male elephant eating bamboo. He stopped and looked at us, as if assessing whether we were a threat and what his next course of action should be. We each looked at each other for a while. When the bull decided that we were not going to harm him, he went back to feeding on the bamboo but ready to act if need be. After a few more moments, we started the jeep and continued down the forest road…