Learning from Behind....Gavi,PTR

[V S Sankar]

The youngster would like to learn many things.For the time being just studying how to negotiate sloppy hills......

Canon 400D,55-250IS,ISo400,1/400,f8....

Regards

[Saktipada Panigrahi]

The image is beautiful and interesting. The elephant can climb up the hill at a pace faster than a human being. While coming down from top and negotiating steep slope, it faces difficulty due to heavy rear body mass and centre of gravity. Calves sometimes meet with accidents and are even washed away by flowing river.

I agree that it is a training programme. However, I have two questions in mind :

(1)Was there any adult elephant coming behind the calf? As normally an adult female (may be male) comes behind at a distance. If yes, issue is resolved.

(2)If not, there are two issues. (a) Density of tiger population is very low in the area. Even then will a mother expose the calf to grave danger? (b) A tiger never attacks a prey when it is sure that the kill will roll down and get stuck at a place from where it will not be able to recover the kill.

Where do we stand in this case? Thanks for sharing.SaktiWild

[V S Sankar]

Saktiji thanks for your in-depth analysis.Its just wonderful......There was this tusker little bit behind and slightly up.(I cropped the image to avoid the tusker!...)...But I wonder even if the yougster had to take a tumble(In an unfortunate event) and roll over,would the tusker be of any help?!....

Also this youngster was in still more precarious positions during their stay in the sloppy hill....

As you said its difficult for the elephants to climb down which we witnessed as well during this show!..It was hilarious to see them slide down like kids!....(But the images I took of them sliding down was not sharp...)

Saktiji the tiger census is on now and we hope their numbers would go up......But as ususal we hope the herd to protect the youngster from an unlikely attack by a tiger!

Regards

[Saktipada Panigrahi]

Sankar Bhai,

The presence of an adult elephant at the rear acts as a credible 'deterrent'. But it cannot stop attack altogether.
Normally, a large male tiger can garner enough courage to attack a calf in the herd of elephants (and so the number of attacks are rare), but pursuit continues.
Kind regards,
SaktiWild

[Sabyasachi Patra]

Elephants have got nice sense of smell. They can smell the tiger from a distance if the wind is favourable. The visibility appears to be better in this case in the hill slope so the elephants may be sure that there cannot be a surprise attack.

Elephants also purposefully slide down on their hind side while negotiating a slope. However, they are very careful and choose a gentle slope. Shri M. Krishnan had written that while constructing roads in the hills, in the earlier days engineers used to choose the path followed by the elephants, as those paths used to follow the most gentle gradient.