World Elephant Day: Baby Bhunte Explains Causes of Stress Among Elephants and Ways to Assess It – The Weather Channel

Bhunte, the baby elephant, and his family

Dear readers,

Did you know that elephants get stressed too? They can get as tensed as a person hopelessly trapped in the rush hour traffic for hours, with vehicles honking loudly all around, and there is no sign of immediate escape! Yes, we do get stressed and thus, it is especially important for us to understand stress among elephants.

By the way, I am Bhunte, the baby elephant. I was born in December 2016 in the Bandipur forest of India. Being an elephant in this part of the world is not easy! Particularly when the forests are shrinking, and humans territories are expanding.

For starters, we, the elephants, have our own needslarge space, a huge amount of forage, massive quantities of water, and vast home range to roam around. We move from one patch of a forest to another to feed, reproduce and survive. When our movement gets restricted by hurdles such as large dams, roads and human habitations, we do panic! That is one of the reasons that makes us stressed!

Dr Pokharel observing Bhunte, the baby elephant

On a lazy afternoon, I was happily roaming in the forest and I happened to eavesdrop three scientists from the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, discussing how elephants get stressed. One of them, Dr Sanjeeta Sharma Pokharel, was explaining to her colleagues how we can study stress among elephants. Now that I have learnt so much about stress among elephants, I am eager to explain it to all my friends.

See, when our brain senses any disturbances or challenges in the environment, it releases a series of chemicals from glands like Hypothalamus to Anterior Pituitary (both in the brain) to Adrenal (above kidneys). This is how our brain tries to cope with disturbances and to maintain our body balance system. This mode of complex action in our brain is called activation of HPA (Hypothalamus-Pituitary-Adrenal) axis; which consequently, releases a final chemical called cortisol or glucocorticoids.

In simple terms, these chemicals are collectively called stress hormones. Though many scientists liberally refer to glucocorticoids as stress hormones, these hormones do not necessarily only work during stress but perform multiple functions, one of them is controlling the stress. These stress hormones provide a negative feedback loop to the HPA axis and the cycle of chemical release stops.

Well, you would understand that all stress are not the same. There are mainly two types of stresses. Imagine, if I see a tiger, my brain will interpret it as a threat, the HPA axis gets activated, and the stress hormones are released. These hormones are adaptive in nature and will help me in providing an immediate burst of energy through the supply of glucose accompanied by some physiological changes, such as a rise in my heartbeats or palpitation. And then, I will immediately either run or fight or freezealso called fight or flight stress response. This is a short-term reaction and is termed as acute stress.

Bhunte, the baby elephant, and his mom

Now imagine, I and my herd run short of food and water for several months in this forest, in which case HPA axis releases a considerably high amount of glucocorticoids or stress hormones. These hormones will now lose their adaptive function and start behaving adversely. So much so that, the elevated levels of these hormones will affect our brain functioning, reproduction and even survival! Isnt it very scary?! This freaks me out. Such stress response is called chronic stress; occurs when we are exposed to disturbances for a longer period!

Interestingly, I saw Dr Pokharel collecting our poop, following us clandestinely and parking herself behind the bushes. She was apparently reluctant to collect the blood samples from us. According to her, it is unethical; secondly, we are wild animals and collecting blood from us to measure the stress hormones is a dangerous decision! Collecting blood samples from us by capturing us may further increase the stress in us. She, thus, wisely collected our fresh poops which apparently have traces of stress hormones!

Bhunte, the baby elephant, and his response to stress

Using our dung, she gained several insights! It sounds fascinating to me when I hear that our poop can be used to do science. She tracked us for several seasons to study how seasons would affect our body condition. She found that several of us who are healthily fat have fewer stress hormones than the ones who are very thin. She also revealed that the females in herds with more number of Bhunte-s or babies like me are likely to be found more stressed. Females are also more stressed if they are lactating and have a fewer older female in the herd to look after younger ones.

Moreover, contrary to the popular belief, she found that some of us who were foraging crops and staying in a human-dominated landscape were less stressed than those inside and never ventured out of forests! She was curious to see these surprising results, and thus went on to study our home (greenness index) and diet. Satellite data revealed that those of us who were staying outside forests were in comparatively greener areas, due to crop cultivation.

She was not yet satisfied as she knew that green need not necessarily mean that we have access to healthy food, because greenness could be due to any plants, even the plants which we hate to eat! She again used our fresh poops to study the diet. And voila! she found that some of us who were feeding on crops have access to good quality diet with high protein content and hence, we were less stressed! Currently, she is studying the influence of human disturbances on our stress response. Is not it intriguing?!

Our dung or poops have the answer to what we have been through. They serve as the blueprints of the challenging times we have faced! Scientists, like Dr Pokharel, are trying to understand our situations to help us cope with our rapidly changing abodes! Cope with the stress caused by human-activities! And finally, cope with our uncertain future!

Bhunte, the baby elephant

Well, I hope you all now know that we, the elephants, too get stressed and such stresses will have negative effects on our health! On the occasion of the World Elephant Day, I request you all to understand us better, to help us live freely in the forests; to let us move, unhindered, between the forests and to perpetuate our species. After all, elephants lives matter too!

With love,

Bhunte

The baby elephant

P.S. Since the past four years, I have been communicating with you all about my experiences of being a baby elephant through my wild-famous blog, Bhunte: the baby elephant. Hope you will pay me a visit!

The article and illustrations are created by Dr. Sanjeeta Sharma Pokharel, an elephant biologist, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, India.

This article is a guest column reflecting the authors opinions and does not necessarily represent the official views of The Weather Channel.

The Weather Companys primary journalistic mission is to report on breaking weather news, the environment and the importance of science to our lives. This story does not necessarily represent the position of our parent company, IBM.

Read more here:
World Elephant Day: Baby Bhunte Explains Causes of Stress Among Elephants and Ways to Assess It - The Weather Channel