Pregnant Elephant Dies After Eating Fruit Stuffed With Firecrackers Originally Meant To Deter Wild Boars

By
Victor Fong
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Look at this animal. So majestic.

Image: Giphy

And so good with massages.

Image: Giphy

A creature so smart, they have a whole Wikipedia article that can be summarised as “researchers can’t believe Elephants are so smart and similar to humans”.

As an endangered animal that’s friendly to humans, you can bet that humans like this animal too.

But a series of unfortunate events have left people, especially those in India, outraged.

Pregnant Elephant In Kerala Ate Pineapple Stuffed With Firecrackers

According to wildlife officials, a wild elephant went into a village near Silent Valley National Park in south Kerala when it ate a fruit (believed to be pineapple) that exploded.

Image: Facebook (Mohan Krishnan)

(If you look carefully at the picture, you can see parts of her face that are clearly red.)

Reportedly, the elephant had stood in the river, using its water to clean the wound before she died.

The details of the incident are still under investigation.

“We only know that the injury (to the elephant) was caused by some explosive substance,” forestry official Sunil Kumar said.

Another similar incident took place last month. A female elephant was also found with serious mouth injuries in a nearby district and died from its injuries.

Locals appeared to have placed fruits spiked with firecrackers to discourage animals like wild boars from damaging crops.

Massive Outrage, Humane Society International Offered Reward For Information

A Facebook post by a forestry official, Mohan Krishnan, had gathered more than 11K reactions and 8.7K shares as of writing.

Image: Facebook (Mohan Krishnan)

In his post, Mohan wrote, “She didn’t harm a single human being even when she ran in searing pain in the streets of the village.”

“She didn’t crush a single home. This is why I said, she is full of goodness.”

“Sorry sister.”

“With her mouth and tongue destroyed in the explosion, she paced around hungry without being able to eat. She must have been more worried about the health of the child inside her than about her own hunger.”

The incident was also shared on various pages like Metrosaga India and The Logical Indian, leading to outrage and a manhunt for the alleged perpetrator.

It got so much attention that even “fan art” was drawn.

View this post on Instagram

A pregnant elephant was fed cracker stuffed pineapple by unidentified people in Kerala which exploded in her mouth and damaged her jaw. She walked around the village and finally passed away standing in a river. We keep searching for monsters hoping they would be having the devil's horns on their heads. But look around you, the monsters walk beside you. From anybody who throws stones at a stray dog to anybody hurting a living soul, choose one face. A lot of these animals trust human beings because they have been helped by them in the past. This is cruel beyond measure. When you lack empathy and kindness, you do not deserve to be called a human being. To hurt someone is not human. Just stricter laws won't help. We need a decent execution of the law too. Until the guilty are punished in the worst possible way, these wicked monsters will never fear the law. Though it's a difficult task, I hope they are able to find out the one who committed this crime and punish them accordingly. Artwork by Bratuti. Post reposted from @tedthestoner

A post shared by Shraddha (@shraddhakapoor) on

The Humane Society International, India has even offered a reward of up to Rs 50,000 (~S$927) for information about the accused and their arrest and conviction.

Image: HSI

“Conflict with wild animals, including wild boars, is not new and needs systemic changes in wildlife management that can address this meaningfully. However, crop loss caused by wild animals in conflict is no justification for community members taking the law into their hands and seeking to maim or kill animals in question,” Sumanth Bindumadhav, the campaign manager for wildlife at HSI India said.

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But Outrage Seems To Be Fuelled By Misleading Titles

Many seemed to have missed the point that the elephant wasn’t fed the fruit deliberately, which seems to be what at least half the outrage was about.

As I previously said, the fruit bombs were meant to be a deterrent to wild animals. These act like pressure-activated landmines and effective in preventing damage to crops.

Just looking to the WWF website reveals that habitat loss had led elephants to seek alternative food sources in farms, settlements and plantations. Small farmers often lose their entire livelihood overnight from an elephant raid.

The point I’m trying to make here is that farmers in India are usually very poor and losing a few crops can mean starvation.

This kind of situation has led to a “war” between humans and elephants. According to government data, some 2,361 people were killed in attacks by elephants between 2014 and 2019. In the same period, about 510 elephants died, 333 from electrocution and another 100 from poaching and poisoning.

In other words, both the farmers and elephants are victims of a larger systemic problem. It’s a literal life or death situation for both the human farmers and elephant.

So how the heck did the outrage become so misguided? You can thank misleading titles for that.

For instance, Metrosaga India seems to imply that humans fed the fruit deliberately.

As did The Logical Indian.

Various news videos have also chosen to use the words “killed” which also implies a more deliberate action.

And it certainly didn’t help when people headline read without looking more into the matter and share it:

How much is there to blame on each level? We’re not really sure.

In fact, our original headline was “People In India Fed Pregnant Elephant with Fruits Filled With Firecrackers & It Died Soon After” before additional research was done on the topic.

But I’d sure like people to chill and wait for more information before initiating the manhunt. There’s just not enough reliable information on the incident yet.

Remember, the details of the incident are still under investigation.

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Victor Fong
Email: [email protected]