‘It is important to study human-elephant conflict, but it is also important to understand elephants’ backgrounds and society’
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The talk was a part of ‘Kaapi with Kuriosity’, a monthly public lecture series organised by the International Centre for Theoretical Sciences (ICTS-TIFR) in collaboration with the Jawaharlal Nehru Planetarium and other educational institutions in Bengaluru
“Elephants are a good system for studying socio-ecological predictions,” says ecologist and educator T.N.C. Vidya at a recent talk titled Understanding Animal Societies held at the Jawaharlal Nehru Planetarium in Bengaluru. Vidya is referring specifically to Asian elephants, which she studies because they live in a wide range of habitats and are highly social. Females lead their complex societies, while males disperse out of the herd when they are 10 years old, she points out. The males may temporarily associate with males and females from other herds, but they are alone the rest of the time, unlike female elephants, who continue to spend their lives in these herds.

This talk, part of ‘Kaapi with Kuriosity’, a monthly public lecture series organised by the International Centre for Theoretical Sciences (ICTS-TIFR) in collaboration with the Jawaharlal Nehru Planetarium and other educational institutions in Bengaluru, also revealed fascinating insights about Asian elephants and other social animals. In her talk, Vidya, a scientist specialising in social behaviour in animals and the evolution of sociality at the Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research, Bengaluru, delved into the advantages of being social, the degrees of sociality, types of social organisations, socioecological theory, the importance of studying sociality and the Kabini Elephant Project.