They say an elephant never forgets, and the old adage couldn't hit closer to home in the latest report from the Daily Mail on a series of revenge attacks carried out on an eastern Indian village by a grieving elephant herd after one of their own was hit and killed by a train.
Last Wednesday, a Kolkata-Delhi Duronto Express train in eastern India, near the village of Matai, accidentally hit and killed an elephant. Its herd of about 15 then stayed near the spot and appeared to grieve for their fallen member. Foresters attempted to chase off the herd with firecrackers and drums, but the elephants refused to stray far from the spot.
The elephants then went on a disturbing "rampage," damaging parts of a local school and several houses in the Belwatand village. Villagers were unable to drive the herd away themselves, keeping vigil through the night ro watch in case the elephants returned. So far, the elephants have not harmed any people, only their homes and buildings.
"Elephants often try to return to the site of such accidents as they believe that their mate has only been injured and could be rescued by them. Even when an elephant dies a natural death, their friends cover the body with bushes and small tree branches," Wildlife activist D S Srivastava told the Times Of India.
Authorities are concerned about the grieving elephant herd, as "train drivers have also been asked to be more careful," as Amrendra Das, spokesperson for Dhanbad railway division, told the Times.
Forest experts attempted to drive away the herd, but with no luck. An elephant-chasing squad from Bengal was then called to the area, and succeeded in chasing the elephants relatively far away last Friday. However, that day the herd decided to pay another visit to the scene of the accident, and damaged one house in in the Hariktand village. According to local sources, as the Times reports, about 10 homes have been damaged by the grieving elephants.
This series of events may be shocking to many, but would come as no surprise to those familiar with the cognition of elephants and their intellectual capabilities. Elephants have been known to grieve and mourn in the wild, not only recognizing but cradling the bones of their loved ones, and scientists believe that they rank equal to dolphins in terms of intelligence, as their cerebral cortex has as many neurons as a human brain.
"We see them doing amazing things in the wild, but we can see from [that] they're definitely co-operating," Joshua Plotnik from the University of Cambridge told BBC News after leading a study in 2011 on elephants and their ability to work together.
In the wild, elephants have been observed to display emotions ranging from joy and altruism to grief, stress and rage, according to PBS, making them highly expressive creatures.
Click here to see a photo of the train that accidentally struck and killed a member of a local elephant herd.
