Most of us think of elephants as creatures of the wild: roaming savannahs, drinking from rivers, staying far away from human life. But a new study says that image doesn’t hold when the rains stop. According to the research, ‘Elephants move closer to humans when droughts are sustained’ by biologist Irene Bouwman of Radboud University, the longer a drought lasts, the more African elephants approach human settlements with potentially deadly consequences for both humans and animals.
The findings provide a sobering glimpse into what climate change could mean for human-wildlife coexistence in one of the world's most ecologically sensitive regions.
