Principal Investigator: B.A. Daniel
Sponsor: University Federation for Animal Welfare (UFAW)

This one-year project is to understand the intensity of elephant-taunting practices and issues related to animal welfare. In the past 16 years (1999-2014) the Coimbatore Forest Division has recorded 96 human causalities and 133 elephant deaths. Though there are many reasons for Human elephant conflict, the cause for certain human causalities remained as mystery. In early 2013 a group of researchers reported about a new ‘game’ of ‘wild elephant-taunting’ in Coimbatore forest division. In this ‘game’ elephants are harassed badly by onlookers, leading to retaliation. The report says that ‘elephant-taunting’ has become a spectator sport in the region. A well-connected network of local informants sends messages to people interested in the ‘game’ when elephants are spotted. As soon as word spreads about a herd’s location, the crowd pours in on motorbikes, cycles and on foot. ….. Sometimes the men, mostly youths trying to prove their machismo, walked right up to the elephants to instigate them and induce some reaction. This was found to be the cause of human causality and a dangerous animal welfare issue which has to be stopped. The objectives of the project are: to explore the process and ways in elephant-taunting, who does this & why; to draw recommendations to stop this practice and to create a network of stakeholders to monitor and discourage this activity.