Corridors for Elephants — How and Why

Imagine India’s map a thousand years ago. No, not from the vague memories of human history we learnt in school, but from the old tales where frequent walks through forests and encounters with wildlife were common. Picture the olden, diverse landscapes of the Indian subcontinent, sans political borders.

Wildlife was undisturbed. Elephants roamed in large habitats for thousands of years. The forests were theirs to rule. They migrated freely through dense forests and scrubs alike, from one end to another, using valleys and flatlands which were the easiest for the weighty creatures to traverse.

Asian elephants, India. (Source: Peter Glenday)

All in the Head

I’ve met many humans who are eager to recount exaggerated recollections of what an elephant remembered, but it’s true that an extremely well-developed area in the elephant’s brain is the neuronal memory allocation. Elephants, through generations, have been navigating by using the network in their brains that has helped them store many movement paths. They know where to go when, and what they’ll find there. The oldest female of a herd, the matriarch, takes charge to teach the paths to calves along with other long-standing knowledge. And, thus, every elephant in every herd knows the range it should stick to.

Matriarchal herd in the midst of its ever-green. (Source: Salmon Daniel)

An adult elephant needs to feed on about 250 kilos of food and drink as many litres of water every day. (Let that sink in.) Using their old migratory routes, elephants forage long distances, while also being careful not to enter the turf of another herd.

Another reason for traversing such large areas is the need to keep genetic diversity alive. After leaving the herd as adolescents, bull elephants, which often grow into intimidating tuskers, roam alone. They do so all while in search of a female from a different herd to mate with. Bulls sometimes cover distances of thousands of kilometres in a single period.

People, Agriculture, Connectivity

As human population (regrettably) increased, so did our agricultural lands widen. We occupied the fertile valleys and flatlands, and the forests that were the elephants’ once-vast kingdoms began to get eaten from within. Before long, roads around and through official forest lands multiplied and got upgraded for human convenience. The elephants saw that they were left with narrow pathways of forests because they preferred, at least during the vulnerability of daytime, the safety of the lands untouched by humans. These are what became their “corridors”. Our appetite for more land is not done growing; the forests are not done shrinking.

The irony. (Source: Kishore Sabareeshan)

In the cover of darkness, elephants cover large distances at night-time since they venture out of forestland. They’re instinctive to still follow their migratory routes, continuing to do what they’ve learnt, even if they’re through agricultural fields. Besides, these crops do make for the much-needed, as well as delicious, food to compensate for the wilderness that is gone.

Every new road or railway track is a new obstacle they need to encounter as they try to follow their paths of generations. (Source: Vaidyanathan R)

Which is the forest nearest to you? If you took a look at a 1940s’ map of this forest and compare it with one from the 2000s, you’ll most likely find that the forest cover has reduced by 50%. This is sixty years. Sixty years is the lifetime of an elephant. What the elephant saw in its younger days is now unrecognisable, crowded by humans, and impenetrable. The forests that have shrunk rapidly for the last several decades have made the elephants anxious.

Help, Human?

It’s always better to recognise where the elephants are moving and then try to ease the situation, making it comfortable for them. More effort needs to be put in to manage land-use, sometimes structurally changing it, while keeping elephant conservation in mind. New proposals are made often to protect existing pathways and to declare them official elephant corridors (see links below). The gentle giants send a gentle reminder for their fair share.

Existing elephant corridors in India. (Source: Wildlife Trust of India)

Nanditha Chandraprakash

Written by

As the crow flies, as the beetle crawls, as the stingray wanders, as the owl scans. As the tree stands. A human understands. (@ayellowmoon_ on Instagram.)

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