Elephants suspected of being drunk, dozens of them sleeping on the edge of the forest

A herd of more than 20 elephants is suspected of being drunk on alcohol brewed in earthen pots by villagers in India, causing them to sleep scattered throughout the forest.

The rare incident happened in a dense forest in Salipada village in Odisha state, India. A herd of about 24 elephants were suspected of being drunk, sleeping scattered on the edge of the forest near the area where the flowers of the mahua tree were mixed with water and placed in a large jar to ferment.

The flowers of this plant are often fermented by villagers to produce traditional wine.

It is understood that the villagers of Salipada had placed jars of wine to ferment in the forest. But when they returned, they only saw broken jars and a herd of elephants lying on the ground in a drunken state.

"We entered the forest at 6am to collect mahua flowers and saw that all the jars were broken. Meanwhile, the elephants seemed drunk. They must have drunk the fermented liquid. We tried to wake them up but failed and had to call the forest rangers for help," said Naria Sethi, a villager.

Dozens of elephants suspected of being drunk are sleeping on the edge of the forest. — **An elephant in the herd lies sleeping on the ground in a state of suspected drunkenness** (Photo: Imgur).

Only when the rangers arrived and beat drums loudly did they wake up. Then the herd continued on into the deep forest.

"Elephants love this wine because it smells nice but gets drunk easily. When they smell it, they can stick their trunks into the kitchen or break down walls to get into the house to find the wine. After getting drunk, they stagger back into the forest, toppling trees along the way," said Kartick Satyanarayan, CEO of Wildlife SOS.

According to Mr. Kartick, there are even elephants that are "heavily addicted" to this liquor and "frantically" search for it. An unfortunate incident occurred in April 2022 when a herd of elephants killed 5 people who were making liquor in the Jaisingh Nagar forest area.

Authorities in Jaisingh Nagar had previously warned locals not to brew mahua in the forest after they discovered a herd of elephants roaming inside. However, some people ignored the warning and still brewed the liquor in the forest, leading to fatal accidents.

According to experts, they rarely see elephants sleeping on the ground. But in 2021, a similar incident happened in China, attracting public attention in this country.

A herd of Asian elephants escaped from a nature reserve in Xishuangbanna. They then trekked together for about 480km across China. They were finally found resting on the ground by local authorities after a journey that lasted nearly two months.

According to vietnamnet.vn

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