In India, there's a Hindu deity that has the head of an elephant and the body of a man.
The elephant-headed deity, Ganesh, is often associated with wisdom and intellect.
Unfortunately, the lack of it killed Ganesh's kin in India.
This happened on May 27, 2020 when a two-month-old pregnant elephant had strayed into a village close to the Silent Valley National Park in the Palakkad district in Kerala in search of food.
Hungry, the 15-year-old ate a pineapple – but unknown to the animal at that time, the seemingly harmless fruit would be her last meal. It had been filled with firecrackers – and as she bit into the Ananas comosus, the explosives went off in her mouth, grievously damaging her jaw.
[A spokesperson for the Kerala Forest Department had said farmers are known to put fireworks inside food and plant it on the edges of their fields to keep away wild animals].
In pain, the elephant was spotted running in the streets of the village, looking for a water source.
The pachyderm managed to get to the Velliyar River and stood there with her head partially underwater.
Wildlife officers brought two captive elephants to lead her out of the river, but she wouldn't move. She just stood there for four days, not moving, not eating, before dying.
The incident came to the public's attention when forest officer Mohan Krishnan, part of the team who attempted to rescue the animal, shared the story on Facebook.
'Tis a cruel act against an innocent animal. It is time we humans begin to internalize the wisdom that Ganesh embodies and use our intellect to treat elephants (and all creatures) better.
India has the world’s largest population of the Asian elephant (Scientific name: Elephas maximus), but they are classified as an endangered species. Incidents of human-animal conflict are not uncommon as elephants often stray into human settlements foraging for food.
The murder has swelled into outrage on social media and some artists have paid tribute:
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