elephant funeral photo

Funerals among human beings are known to be elaborate and differ according to the tradition and culture each person comes from. However, it is a rarely known fact that even animals are capable of emotions and have their own practice when one of their own passes away.

This was the case when a herd of elephants in a forest area carried out a funeral procession for a dead calf at an undisclosed location. 

An Indian Forest Service officer, Parveen Kaswan, tweeted a video a few days back of a herd of elephants holding a funeral procession for a young calf that had passed away.

Kaswan had tweeted the video with the caption, "This will move you!! Funeral procession of the weeping elephants carrying the dead body of the child elephant. The family just doesn't want to leave the baby."

The video showed an elephant coming from a forested area onto a road. It was carrying the body of a dead calf. After walking some distance on the road, the elephant drops the calf, walks a few steps and stands at a distance. The rest of the herd followed and emerged from the greenery, standing at a distance and paying their respects. The herd included all the cows, bulls and calves.

The first elephant then picked up the body of the dead calf and proceed to cross the road and went into the forest. During the entire time, the elephants were fanning their ears as a sign of respect.

What was interesting was that there was a group of people watching the events unfold and the elephants did not pay heed to them. 

Kaswan later explained that there are elephant cemeteries and funeral proceedings among elephant herds are a very solemn occasion. He tweeted, "There are theories which talk about ancient elephant cemeteries in the forest. Many people have written about it, including strecy. But I have not found any conclusive evidence. Though in most cases elephants prefer to die near water bodies."