Sanjeeta Pokharel first saw Asian elephants responding to death. An elephant died of an illness in the park. A female was walking around a carcass. There are fresh dung piles.
"That is where we got curious," said Dr. Pokharel. They wanted to learn more. It's rare to see such a moment in person, as Asian elephants are very elusive.
The scientists used crowdsourced videos of Asian elephants to write a paper for the Royal Society Open Science. They found touching and standing guard as well as nudging, kicking and shaking. Females had used their trunks to carry baby elephants that had died.
The study of how different animals react to death is part of a growing field called comparative thanatology. African elephants are known to visit and touch carcasses. There were stories about it, but there was no scientific documentation.
There were 24 cases for study. The Indian Institute of Science provided videos of an additional case.
Sniffing and touching were the most common reactions. Many elephants touched the carcass with their trunks. Two elephants shook a dead one. The mothers kicked their dead or dying calves.
Dr. Pokharel said that Asian elephants communicate with touch. They may sleep against one another. She said that elephants with their trunks wrapped together are often seen walking.
Making noise was a frequent response to death. Elephants were trumpeted, roared or rumbled. Elephants kept a close watch over a carcass, sometimes sleeping nearby and sometimes trying to chase away humans who tried to investigate. Several tried to help their fallen peers.
In five cases, adult females carried the bodies of calves that had died.
The observation was not new. Ape and monkey mothers are holding dead infants. Dolphins and whales may carry dead calves on their backs or push them up to the surface of the water to encourage them to breathe. An African elephant mother carries her dead calf for a full day, the carcass draped across her tusks, according to an elephant researcher at the University of Stirling in Scotland.
These animals look like parents who are not ready to let go of their children. Dr. Pokharel said that carrying is not a usual behavior in elephants, as calves usually follow the herd around on their own feet.
She said that carrying itself can indicate that there is something wrong with the calf.
Understanding more about how elephants view death could give us insight about their cognitive abilities. She hopes that it will help to better protect elephants that are in conflict with humans.
She said that they talk about habitat loss, but not about what animals are going through.
The new paper was described by Dr. Lee as wonderful and confirmatory.
These rare and extremely important natural history observations suggest that an awareness of loss is present in elephants.
Scientists don't know what degree elephants grasp the concept of death, rather than just the absence of a herd member. Even for us humans, our primary experience is probably loss, according to Dr. Lee.
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