Maintaining full control over elephants is a key part of the mahout’s job. Beyond ensuring that work will be done properly and efficiently, full control ensures the safety of the mahout, the safety of other humans nearby, and even the safety of the elephant itself.

Controlling elephants divides into two categories, normal circumstance...

      Execution by elephant was a common method of capital punishment in South and Southeast Asia, and particularly in India. Asian elephants were used to crush, dismember, or torture captives in public executions. The animals were trained and versatile, both able to kill victims immediately and to torture them slowly over a prolonged period. Employed by royalty, the elephants were used to signify...

ILLEGAL WILDLIFE TRADE

Even where suitable habitat exists, poaching remains a threat to elephants in many areas. In 1989, the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) banned the international trade in ivory. However, there are still some thriving but unregulated domestic ivory markets in a number of countries which fuel an illegal international trad...

                 The main threat facing Indian elephants, like all Asian elephants is loss of habitat, which then results in human-elephant conflict. In South Asia, an ever-increasing human population has led to many illegal encroachments in elephant habitat. Many infrastructure developments like roads and railway tracks also fragment habitat. Elephants become confined to “islands” as their a...

STATUS: Endangered

POPULATION : 20,000 - 25,000

SCIENTIFIC NAME: Elephas maximus indicus

HEIGHT: 6.5– 11.5 feet

WEIGHT: around 11,000 pounds

LENGTH: around 21 feet

HABITATS: Forests

                Elephants are an important cultural icon in Asia. According to Indian mythology, the gods (deva) and the demons (asura) churned the oceans in a search for the elixir of life so that they would...