In a moving display, a herd of 17 Asian elephants visited a deceased herd member’s burial site, in Andhra Pradesh, India, to mourn their lost family member. This heartfelt moment exemplifies the strong social and familial bonds that elephants frequently form.
A day earlier, the herd wandered into a field. One member came into contact with a live cable wire, which tragically electrocuted him to death. Nearby elephant trackers diverted the herd away from the site and buried the poor elephant where he died.
When the surviving herd members returned a day later, they repeatedly circled the burial mound, stampeding the mud and making sorrowful trumpeting noises. After paying their respects, all 17 elephants retreated into the forest.
The emotional event deeply touched onlookers.
“The sentiments of the elephants had moved not only the forest personnel, but also the farmers, who despite suffering crop damage have not made a complaint of it,” Forest Range Officer K. Madhan Mohan Reddy told The Hindu. “We are just bowled over by their gesture.”
Forest officials predicted the herd’s return to the site and took precautions to prevent another tragedy.
“As per our request, the power was disconnected through all low-lying cables across the fields in the vicinity of the mound,” Reddy explained. “The power officials are now increasing the height of the power lines or shifting the locations of the poles.”
Elephants are well-known for grieving their herd members’ deaths for extended periods of time. These rituals and behaviors remind us of their ability to feel complex emotions, a capacity often mistakenly thought of as uniquely human. Elephants clearly experience sadness, love, compassion and distress.
Various other animals, including orcas, humpback whales, lemurs, and chimpanzees, also mourn their dead. Grieving symbolizes the close relationships animals form between family members and helps them achieve closure after losing a loved one. As the recently-observed Asian elephants’ funerary ritual shows, mourning is not a process unique to the human experience.
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Animal abuse has to be taken seriously
Poor Baby. :'( :'( :'( :'(
THE INHUMANITY OF HUMANKIND REQUIRES A CONSTANT AND VIGILANTACTION!!
THE INHUMANITY OF HUMANKIND REQUIRES A CONSTANT AND VIGILANTACTION!!
I totally agree with you, Peter. Time to do just that is NOW. Implement the death penalty for animal abuse! Satan does not deserve to live!
I totally agree with you, Peter. Time to do just that is NOW. Implement the death penalty for animal abuse! Satan does not deserve to live!
People must understand that they have feelings just like we do 🙁
WHY, WHY all this cruelty towards animals who want no harm onto us! WHY?
We’ve all known about elephants being so human like. I hope they removed the wire as well as the poachers and they have enough land to roam away from humans.
My Amazon parrot was incredibly depressed after the passing of my mother. How did he know? She had been in hospital for weeks. They sense it.
Dogs and cats also grieve the passing of their owners.
Can the starving Moroccan dogs in the pound be release and flown into a U.S. sanctuary–or even a home, like mine?
*Hi roni. You would think they could and would release those dogs to all the people who want to help but that’s just it. Those heartless morons running the pound doesn ‘t want to release them or let anyone help them. I read volunteers would come to help and they would turn them away. It’s just pure heartless and EVIL! The government is no better, either and obviously could care less, or they would step in and I refuse to think their useless government don’t know about the problem. Some animal welfare organization should have the power to overide those heartless pieces of crap and rescue those dogs. This is such a WORLDWIDE problem with sadistic sub-humans neglecting, abusing, torturing and intentionally killing sweet, innocent, precious animals of all kinds. The minds of lots of humanity boggles my mind. To think that they think they have the right to destroy other species and do what they want to them, treating them any way they please is so disturbingly selfish.
These idiots don’t realize that they are accumulating and bringing such negative karma to themselves. It is spiritual law, anyone who intentionally harm any of god’s creatures will have karma to pay back. I don’t and won’t pity any of them. They deserve what they have brought on themselves. Despite it all … my heart still cries for each and every animal on this planet who has suffered and is still suffering from a heartless humanity.
Hi Debra,
Any thoughts as to who might be able to persuade whomever truly is in charge here? Or do we first need to figure out
who wields that power?
So sad.
Please do something about this!!!
I feel very sorry for those poor elephants. After all, they have feelings too
just like you and I.
This only goes to prove that animals have feelings and express them. Just because they don’t talk doesn’t mean that they can’t love, feel sorrow, know what happiness is, and so on. The only time animal abuse, torture and murder will cease is when God destroys this earth in its entirety. Many so-called “humans” have failed in caring for his animals and they keep on failing without any compassion for the voiceless.
My Amazon parrot was so depressing after my mother died. How did he know? She was in hospital for weeks.
Dogs and cats also grieve when their owners die.
End animal abuse and cruelty once and for all.
So terrible. Why dont animals have any rights???? Vile humans deserve the death penalty.
End animal abuse and cruelty once and for all.
The dead elephant is now RESTING IN PARADISE
Every fucking day I get more embarrassed being part of the fucking human race.But I tell myself I am not part of this fucking horrible human race.There going to write about us one day in the history books how fucking horrible humans were to each other and to animals.But I can say reading those comments there are some who care and are also embarrassed being part of the human race.Time to find the horrible ones and delete them from earth..
It goes without saying that animals are sentient, have feelings, not just for themselves but for family and herd members. I had a cat who died at age 12, and his sister mourned him, and kept looking for him. It was heartbreaking. I don’t think she ever really go over losing him to her own dying day.
IF PEOPLE ARE PROTECTED WHY AREN’T THE ANIMALS !!! THIS IS HEARTBREAKING !!!
Save Our Beloved Elephants from Dispair, Harm and Extinction Now!!!
WRONG, WRONG, WRONG!!!!
Elephants are so like us.They mate for life, travel infamily herds, communicate with sound, raise their orphans, and mourn their dead.The same with porpoises and whales. We as humans should tske notice and realize that we are not the ones of Gods creatures on this planet.
This proves thst animals are sentient beings. Thanku for raising the wires, moving the poles and switching the electric power off when the elephants came back to mourn their loss. 🐘🐘🐘❤❤❤
Y
This proves thst animals are sentient beings. 🐘🐘🐘 Thanku for lifting the wires, shifting the poles and switching the power offwhen the elephants came back to mourn. ❤❤
Feel the animals’ pain.
Thank you for this beautiful and sad story. I’m glad they are going to remove the electric wires.
The story about the grieving elephants tore at my heart. There’s so much we don’t know about these animals, but what we do know is heartwarming, sensitive, complex, and in many ways sad. They deserve to live in peace, but man won’t let them.