Tony Azios, Gods in Shackles Cameraman A still shot from Gods in Shackles documentary produced and directed by Sangita Iyer.

In recent days, human-elephant conflicts have been escalating, making sensational headlines across India. One of the recent deaths of a harmless wild tusker, affectionately called "Chilli Komban," sparked outrage among wildlife activists, with the Kerala government laying criminal charges against those who rammed him to death with an excavator.

Supplied to Blogger

In a rather humorous story, a herd of elephants drove a farmer up a tree, in the Idukki district of Kerala, as he remained there drenched to his bones before the forest department arrived and scared off the elephants using fireworks and drums. It could have been disastrous for the farmer, as humans have been trampled to death bythe disruption of elephant corridor are said to be the reasons for the increased incidents of elephant intrusion into human habitations." Making matters worse is the fact that a substantial proportion of India's population lives near the fringes of the elephants' ranges, splitting up elephant herds into small and isolated pockets and threatening their long-term survival. In the second most densely populated country in the world, a huge percentage of the elephants' former range has been lost, and the remaining habitat is shrinking rapidly. And as the human population multiplies in these areas, the elephant habitats are being transformed into farmland, luring elephants to the crops that the farmers rely on for their livelihoods, further intensifying human-elephant confrontations. In extreme cases of conflicts, elephants have been caught and