Bengaluru: YouTube helps Indian Institute of Science scientist's study jumbo grief

BENGALURU: Watching animal videos on streaming platforms is not uncommon. In fact, there are even studies about their popularity.
But when three researchers from the Centre for Ecological Sciences of Indian Institute of Science (IISc) — Sanjeeta Sharma Pokharel, Nachiketha Sharma and Raman Sukumar — sat down to review YouTube videos of Asian elephants, it was for reasons more than the videos just being “cute”. They were studying the behaviour of these animals, especially how they react to death.
While scientists globally acknowledge the importance of documenting behavioural repertoire of an animal species for understanding their natural history, they also concede how behaviours such as mating, parturition and death may be observed only rarely in the wild due to low frequency of occurrence, short duration and the species’ elusiveness.
The IISc team sought the aid of YouTube videos to add to data from observations in the wild and bridge the gap. It published the findings in the Royal Science Society journal in mid-May and the paper is available for public access.

The researchers argue: “...Opportunistic documentation of rare behaviours is therefore valuable for deciphering the behavioural complexity in a species. In this context, digital platforms may serve as useful data sources for studying rare behaviours in animals.”
What they found
The team specifically studied the reactions of Asian elephants to death. Death is a rare event and observing it in the wild is even rarer. As elephants are considered one of the more intelligent animals, researchers are interested in understanding how they react to the death of their kin. This branch of science is called ‘comparative thanatology’. To assess Asian elephants’ thanatological (death-related) responses, the group used YouTube videos, said IISc.
“Using videos, we document and construct a tentative repertoire of thanatological responses in Asian elephants (elephas maximus). The most frequently observed thanatological responses included postural changes, guarding/keeping vigil, touching, investigating the carcass, epimeletic behaviours and vocalisations,” the researchers said.
They also described some infrequently observed behaviours, including carrying of dead calves by adult females, reassurance-like behaviour and attempts to support dying or dead conspecifics, some of which were only known anecdotally in Asian elephants. “Our observations indicate the significance of open-source video data on digital platforms for gaining insights into rarely observed behaviours and support accumulating evidence for higher cognitive abilities of Asian elephants in the context of comparative thanatology,” the researchers said.