Asian elephants have different personality traits just like humans

Researchers of the University of Turku, Finland, have studied a timber elephant population in Myanmar and discovered that Asian elephant personality manifests through three different factors. The personality factors identified by the researchers are Attentiveness, Sociability and Aggressiveness.

As is commonly known, people have different personalities, and the structure of human personality can be divided into five factors. Other species' behaviour also differs between individuals: some are braver, more social, or aggressive than others.

"These kinds of consistent differences in behaviour are called personality. Personality studies on other species than humans have so far focused on primates, pets and zoo populations, or on species that have a relatively short lifespan. Besides humans, personality studies on other long-lived species living in their natural habitat are rare," says Postdoctoral Researcher and the lead author of the study Martin Seltmann from the Department of Biology at the University of Turku.

The researchers of the University of Turku studied a semi-captive population of timber elephants in Myanmar and discovered that Asian elephants have three different personality factors: Attentiveness, Sociability and Aggressiveness. The researchers also identified that male and female elephants do not differ in these three personality factors.

"Attentiveness is related to how an elephant acts in and perceives its environment. Sociability describes how an elephant seeks closeness to other elephants and humans, and how popular they are as social partners. Aggressiveness shows how aggressively an elephant acts towards other elephants and how much it interferes in their social interaction," describes Dr Seltmann.

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Locals Seek Police Assistance to Deter Rampaging Elephant

A wild elephant has been on a rampage through several villages in the west of Pathein Township in Irrawaddy Region as of Tuesday, and locals are afraid.

“That elephant is really wild and not afraid of humans. It stamped a pig to death in Kyun Kalay village and also destroyed a house in Ywathit village. We locals are scared that it could hurt us,” U Hla Htay, the administrator of Kyaukphya village tract, told The Irrawaddy.

Forestry police and personnel of the Pathein Township Forestry Department arrived in the village tract on Friday after locals sought help. The forestry department brought four tamed elephants to help drive it back to the forest.

Wild elephants visit farms for food usually from the paddy harvest in November to around May before the rainy season starts, according to locals.

“As people cut down trees excessively, it causes deforestation, and elephants are devoid of foods. They are losing their habitats. So, they come to human settlements to eat paddy, banana and other crops grown by the people, resulting in human-elephant conflict,” said Sai Zaw Oo, a supervisor of the Myanmar Elephant Lovers Association, a local community-based organization based in Ngapudaw Township.

“At the same time, this has given elephant poachers the opportunity to hunt wild elephants that come and search for food,” he added.

Last year, a herd of wild elephants came and ate crops grown by locals around Ngwe Saung Beach in the west of Pathein Township, and four local villagers were killed in resultant human-elephant conflicts, according to the Ngwe Saung Beach police station.

In June this year, non-governmental organizations, forestry police and Myanma Timber Enterprise formed a team tasked with scaring away elephants from human settlements and preventing them from being hunted by poachers. The team carries out regular patrols across the forests with tamed elephants.

According to the Ministry of Natural Resources and Conservation, 18 wild elephants were poached in Myanmar in 2016 whereas about 30 elephants have been hunted as of Aug. 31 this year.

The elephant population of the country is now estimated to be between 1,400 and 2,000—a significant decrease from about 10,000 in the 1940s, according to the Forestry Department.

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Wild elephants trample rice fields in Pegu Township

Herds of wild elephants have destroyed no less than 200 acres of rice paddies in 50 villages in Pegu [Bago] Township over the past three months as they forage for food.

Mass timber production in the region, which lies just 50 miles north of Rangoon, has caused severe deforestation, resulting in many wild animals, including elephants, abandoning the forests to search for new habitats closer to villages.

Local farmers have reported to the local NLD representative that herds of between four and 20 elephants venture toward built-up areas mostly at night and trample through rice fields as they search for plants, legumes and grasses.

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Elephants attack cyclone-hit areas

The Associated Press
March 23, 2009
YANGON, Myanmar: Local media says wild elephants that lost their habitats in last year's devastating cyclone are destroying farm lands and attacking villagers as they forage for food.

The privately owned Weekly Eleven journal said Monday that wild elephants lost a swath of their habitat as Cyclone Nargis destroyed forests of the Rakhine mountain range in the southern tip of the Irrawaddy River delta.

The journal did not say whether villagers had been killed or injured in the attacks or if authorities were taking any preventive measures.

The area was the first hit by the cyclone on May 2, which left nearly 140,000 people dead or missing in the delta and other areas.

International and domestic operations to help survivors continue.

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Myanmar's wild elephants helping cut down their forest habitat

Agence France Presse

February 18, 2008

YANGON (AFP) — Elephants in Myanmar have long been invaluable labourers in the country's timber industry, nimbly finding their way through forests and dragging heavy fallen trees to rivers for shipping.

But as Myanmar's ruling junta expands logging in the country's teak forests, more wild elephants are being captured and trained for clear-cutting operations that destroy the very habitats in which they roamed freely, activists and industry insiders say.

"On account of the loss and fragmentation of their habitats, the size of the wild elephant population has declined," said Uga, chairman of local environmental group Biodiversity and Nature Conservation Association.

"To obtain elephant power for logging, wild elephants are being captured and recruited," said Uga, who uses only one name.

Employing elephants is normally more environmentally friendly than using heavy machinery, which requires roads cut into forests which cause more damage than elephants would.

About 4,500 elephants are believed to be working in the logging industry, including 2,500 owned by the state-run Myanmar Timber Enterprise (MTE), Uga said.

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