Elephant feeding on Bark.

Here you can see an elephant actually eating the stripped off bark.

Grt pic... sharp..
I love the contentment in his eyes... the wrinkles/creases on the legs look almost sculpted....
good job... !!

Nice documentation here, Vikram. I've always had this question about the claim that elephants debarking trees is a sign of degraded habitat. Although I have seen a lot of debarking in a degraded elephant habitat I live next to (Chandaka, Bhubaneswar), I've frequently observed debarking even in some of the best elephant forests I go to. What would you say about this?

Cheers,
Aditya

No Aditya I do not agree with the claim that elephants debarking trees is a sign of degraded habitat. Kabini is probably one of the best elephant habitats left in India and debarking is prevalent here both during the monsoon ( when there is enough food ) and also during the dry season ( when food is in short supply ). In fact I have not observed any increase in this activity during the dry season. If you look at the other photographs on debarking that I have uploaded , you will notice that they have been taken during the monsoon. I am willing to accept that incidence of debarking may be more frequent in degraded habitats but we need some data to substantiate that.

This behaviour is one of the least understood behaviours. People have talked a lot of rubbish in the published papers. Some of those have formed the basis for culling of elephants in Africa. Unfortunately.

Elephants debark various trees. If it is for want of food, they would have foraged on other plants nearby. Instead, they debark and eat. Elephants learn this behaviour. They need the nutrients and hence debark. If they need to fell trees, they push, break branches but debarking is different.


Africa, case is different as the elephants were victims to culling and some of them, probably because of the pshychological impact of having see culling or having been separated from their loved ones, had engaged in wanton destruction of trees.