Droughts in elephant range states kill calves, disrupt family groups, and force dangerous movements into human-settled areas — a welfare crisis that climate change is intensifying.
Drought causes elephants to die slowly from dehydration and starvation, often in sight of their family members. Calves are the first to die, unable to survive the distances adults can travel in search of water. Surviving family members show grief behaviors — returning to dead companions, standing near carcasses for extended periods. The welfare crisis of drought is not just about individual deaths but about the disruption of complex social bonds and the suffering of highly intelligent animals unable to solve the problem confronting them.