[imagesource: Niraj Mani Chourasia]

A herd of elephants was just trying to cross a national highway in Assam, northeast India, outside a nearby forest reserve recently when things took an ugly turn.

Despite the fact that elephants and people live closely together in the region, the crowd of people who had gathered on the road would not let them pass peacefully.

The herd was provoked to such an extent that one elephant hurried into a nervous rampage, breaking from its family before trampling a person to death.

VICE reports that this video was taken on July 25, and posted on Twitter a day later by Parveen Kaswan, an Indian Forest Service official.

A human lost his life. I wonder whom to blame. pic.twitter.com/KQVGzRq0Ca

— Parveen Kaswan, IFS (@ParveenKaswan) July 26, 2021

The casualty was identified as Pachkal Mura:

The 45-year-old man…. was rushed to a nearby hospital, but he died of his injuries at 9:30PM.

“All formalities have been completed, including post mortem. A formal report will be sent to the higher authorities soon,” a forest official told Assam Tribune.

Elephants are a national heritage animal in India and are protected under strict wildlife laws.

India has an Asian elephant population in excess of 27 000, according to the latest Elephant Population Estimation, with Assam accounting for 5 719 of them.

But the habitats for these elephants is shrinking considerably, forcing increased contact with humans:

RK Srivastava, the director of Project Elephant, which conducted the census, has previously warned that habitat loss is forcing elephants to move into agricultural areas, leading to an increase in run-ins with people.

Official data shows that over 500 people die in run-ins with elephants yearly, as opposed to 100 elephants.

But still, elephants are dying at the hands of humans.

Sadly, human-elephant conflict is still rampant in India, and somehow a balance needs to be struck.

[source:vice]