Elephants prefer Crops to Forest fodder

As per one government study in India, elephants over here prefer food crops to forest fodder and often travel hundreds of miles to the same farmland every year, even remembering specific months of harvesting.

Elephants were adapting to new foods as their traditional habitat was shrinking due to villagers encroaching in forests, experts said after a four-year study on Asian elephants in West Bengal state.

Elephants are migratory animals and move from one forest to another through corridors which are now fragmented due to villages and farmlands, conservationists say, making the animals change their habits.

"Villagers were cultivating crops right on their path and were responsible for the changing food habits of elephants," said Shakti Ranjan Banerjee of the Wildlife Protection Society of India.

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