Destruction caused by wild elephants in Assam! Life and property are often threatened by the close proximity of human habitations to wild elephant habitat in Assam, India. Small groups of wild rampaging elephants often crush huts and village abodes in villages that are close to elephant forest habitats. Human conflict in the wild is a frequent occurrence, and causes much bad blood towards conservation among village communities, as they don't understand the prerogatives of conservation and the need to conserve wild populations and habitats... They often look at wildlife protection as a preserve of the elite and a way of making money for the government!

Wild elephants rampaged through this village, destroying the tenements. Oftentimes, traditional corridors that have been used by wild animals have been encroached by human habitation and the animals have not taken kindly to this... and the humans don't seem to understand.

Another reason is that wild male tuskers go into musth every once in a while and do untold damage in an irrational fashion. Some elephants even get drunk of rice beer after smelling the fragrance of the fermentation from the forest itself, being thus attracted to villages for this...

This footage is part of the professionally-shot stock footage archive of Wilderness Films India Ltd., the largest collection of imagery from South Asia. The Wilderness Films India collection comprises of thousands of hours of high quality broadcast imagery, mostly shot on HDCAM 1080i High Definition, HDV and Digital Betacam. Write to us for licensing this footage on a broadcast format, for use in your production! We pride ourselves in bringing the best of India and South Asia to the world... wfi @ vsnl.com and [email protected].