In India, elephants and humans are learning how to live together. Due to the increase in human populations, elephant habitats are shrinking and elephants are wandering into villages. The encounters are not always friendly.
In a sad and shocking incident in India, a young family of three had a run-in with a tusker elephant and suffered serious injuries.
Satya Dehuri, Rashmita Dehuri, his wife, and their son, Dinabandhu Dehuri, were on a road walking to a fair in the evening when an elephant suddenly appeared.
The father grabbed his son and watched in shock as the elephant attacked his wife with its trunk. The animal then turned its attention to the husband and boy, and attacked them.
The elephant was scared off by the family’s screams, and ran off into the Telkoi forest.
Authorities arrived at the scene and transported the seriously injured family to a local hospital.
People who live in the villages near the Telkoi forest are afraid of the tusker elephants and many people are afraid to leave their houses at night. Forest rangers advise people not to go out after dark due to the dangers.
Climate change is also a major source of human-wildlife conflict. With water sources drying up, elephants are forced to seek new places to drink.
Sometimes elephants are injured by villagers protecting their crops, and the elephants retaliate.
Last year, in August, an elephant attacked its handler in Thailand because it was forced to work in an unbearable heatwave.
The elephant, named Pom Pam, stabbed its 32-year-old handler with its tusks several times, ripping his body apart.
The handler had forced the 20-year-old elephant to haul rubber wood from a plantation for four days in the 89-degree heat.
Authorities found the gigantic elephant near the man’s body and shot her with a sedative to allow rescue workers to retrieve the dead man’s remains.
Although elephants are generally known to be gentle, they can be dangerous when they are provoked.
Elephants can weigh up to 8,000 pounds, and their super-strong, thick trunks can inflict serious injury or kill people and animals.
