Elephants remember. But what do they learn from conflict with humans?

For decades, human-elephant conflict in India has been measured in death tolls. But beyond the grim statistics of elephants poisoned and humans trampled lies a broader, often overlooked question: How do repeated clashes with humans shape the behaviour, health and survival of elephants in the long run?

In 2001, seventeen elephant deaths were reported in Assam’s Sonitpur district, followed by five more in 2002. Most of the carcasses were found in and around farmlands. Post-mortem investigations revealed that many of these deaths were deliberate poisonings. This tragedy was believed to have resulted from elephants damaging standing crops, intensifying human-elephant interactions. 

According to government records, 36 elephants died over the two years. During the same period, 31 people in Sonitpur also lost their lives due to direct encounters with elephants — while defending crops and property or encountering them unexpectedly.

In 2024, the sudden deaths of eleven elephants from a herd of thirteen in Bandhavgarh Tiger Reserve, Madhya Pradesh, revived memories of mass retaliatory killings. Since the elephants were found near farmlands, deliberate poisoning was initially suspected. The elephants had fed on kodo millet and exhibited symptoms typically associated with poisoning. However, post-mortem results pointed to a natural cause — poisoning by mycotoxins produced by fungi infecting the crops.

While the Sonitpur incident is regarded as a clear case of retaliation, foul play was ruled out in Bandhavgarh. However, beyond the loss of an entire family — spanning at least three generations — there is little understanding of the broader impact of such sudden, large-scale deaths. We have no records of elephants surviving poisoning attempts or recovering from exposure. While efforts were made to revive ailing elephants in Bandhavgarh, only an adult bull and a calf survived without assistance.

Most human-elephant conflict statistics focus on fatalities. While it is known that around 5 per cent of elephant deaths reported between 2014 and 2023 resulted from deliberate poisoning, incidents causing injury, permanent impairment or the orphaning of calves are rarely documented. This leaves a significant proportion of the data missing. In this article, we explore the impact of negative human interactions on elephant health.

As sentient beings with close-knit family structures and lifespans comparable to humans, elephants suffer the consequences of human conflict in ways that extend beyond death. In the Bandhavgarh case, although the deaths were not classified as conflict-related, the fact that it takes high quantities of mycotoxins to result in such deaths has been overlooked.

One possible explanation is that elephants, frequently chased away from farmlands, have adapted to forage opportunistically, consuming large quantities in short periods before being driven off, according to experts. It is speculated that while there was no deliberate poisoning, the deaths were ultimately a consequence of ongoing human-elephant conflict.

The health effects of such conflicts, often chronic in nature, span a wide spectrum — from social and psychological well-being to physical injuries and disease. The impact on social health, particularly the well-being of elephants as part of a herd or community, remains one of the least explored areas. 

A behavioural study conducted in Tamil Nadu in the late 1980s found that adult and subadult male elephants took greater risks than female-led herds to forage on crops believed to be more nutritious than wild vegetation. Such risk-taking behaviour increases their chances of encountering deterrent measures, including extreme actions that may lead to deaths.

Across India’s elephant-ranging regions, there is a marked increase in human and elephant fatalities during the crop-ripening and harvest season from October to December. During this time, conflicts often escalate into violence, with elephants being forced into rivers, speared with flaming weapons, or even baited with crude pressure bombs.

While these confrontations occasionally make headlines, the seasonal, isolated nature of such reports limits our understanding of their long-term effects on elephant mental and physical health. How elephants learn to navigate these violent encounters cannot be deduced from reports of elephant deaths.

Every year, around October, mixed-family herds — often with newborn calves — descend on farmlands to feed on crops such as paddy and sugarcane. While the older elephants recognise the high risks, the young calves learn about these dangers from an early age. The long-term impact of these antagonistic encounters on their physical development and social behaviour remains poorly understood.

Orphaning is commonly reported, as calves are often unable to keep up with adult elephants when fleeing from human settlements. Retaliatory measures such as electrocution and poisoning frequently result in the deaths of adult females, leaving calves stranded. The Bandhavgarh incident left one calf orphaned, wandering for days before it was rescued and efforts were made to integrate it into another herd. In Sonitpur, attempts to reunite an orphaned calf with its herd failed for a long time.

Reuniting orphaned calves with their herds is unpredictable, as it depends on at least one or two lactating females accepting the calf. While some successful reunions have been recorded, failed attempts leave calves in the care of state forest departments, where they are raised by captive elephants and trained for domestic use. The long-term consequences of growing up amid constant conflict remain unclear — whether this will lead to calves growing up with less tolerance towards humans than their older relatives or shier of humans remains to be observed.

Physical injuries sustained through human-elephant conflicts are common but rarely reported. In 2018, a herd of 10 elephants wreaked havoc in villages in Madhya Pradesh’s Anuppur district. Having been chased across the border from Chhattisgarh, the elephants bore open wounds. When captured, one was found suffering from sepsis, which would have been fatal without timely treatment. While two elephants died, it remains unclear whether their deaths were due to injuries sustained in conflict or natural causes. 

Elephants that raid farmlands often carry visible scars — large lumps on their sides and backs, telltale signs of past gun pellet wounds from attempts to drive them away from human settlements. While these injuries may not be fatal, they can lead to infections and behavioural changes, such as increased aggression. It is believed that the 2018 incident, in which a herd rampaged through a village and killed a person, was the result of prolonged chasing and shooting.

As conflicts persist, it becomes increasingly important to examine the lasting effects of such encounters on elephant health and social structures.

Aniruddha Dhamorikar works as Lead for Species Conservation for WWF-India's Brahmaputra Landscape based out of Tezpur and Khanin Changmai works as Associate Coordinator - Animal Health with WWF-India based out of Assam.

Views expressed are the author’s own and don’t necessarily reflect those of Down To Earth