Grabbing the Bull by the Tusks: Behavioural Ecology of the Male Asian Elephant in a Human-Dominated Landscape

Scholarship thus far suggests that mature male Asian elephants are mostly solitary. Through my research, however, I show that male Asian elephants in human-dominated landscapes can be highly social. I begin by examining the proximate mechanisms that determine sociality in male elephants living in a human-modified production landscape of southern India and demonstrate that anthropogenic, rather than biological, factors determine the association of males in large and stable all-male groups. I then analyse the group dynamics and the nature of social interactions between males that associate in these novel social groups. The study male elephants appear to have an extensive social network with some individuals occupying 'key' positions within this network. Finally, I discuss the role of these individuals in a bull elephant society and its implications for human-elephant conflict, with a particular focus on the conservation of the increasingly threatened mature male Asian elephant of the Anthropocene