Asian Elephants Cross a Social Tipping Point as Their Networks Fracture

Elephants Found to Be Increasingly Isolated Leading to Fractured Social Networks

Researchers at UC San Diego tracked more than 440 wild female Asian elephants in Sri Lanka's Udawalawe National Park for 12 years, publishing their findings in Science. As deaths and departures outpaced new arrivals, the population crossed a critical threshold: large, densely connected communities collapsed into smaller, more isolated groups, and surviving elephants also changed how they related to one another. Since elephants rely on social ties to forage, share information, and raise young, the researchers warn the shift may be hard to reverse.