Original subtitles

♪ ♪

NARRATOR: Across Asia two of the world's most intelligent species

are figuring out how to co-exist.

(croaking)

We may keep a close eye on them...

(barking)

But they're also watching us, and learning.

Masters of adaption,

Asian elephants are adjusting to our ways,

while we're trying to understan them and learn their secrets.

(theme music playing).

♪ ♪

NARRATOR: Elephants left Africa more than two million years ago

long before the last ice age, in search of a new home.

These ancient wayfarers ended u

spread across most of southern Asia.

Doctor Paula Kahumbu is searching Borneo's

Kinabatangan River for the smallest and rarest of them.

An expert on the African Savannah elephant,

she's here to see how the Bornean elephant known by some

as the Pygmy, is adapting to it rapidly changing environment.

PAULA: I can see footprints, I can see lots of footprints.

Look at that.

(bellowing)

I can't see these elephants;

I can just hear them.

(bellows)

These Bornean elephants, they're so mysterious,

hardly been studied.

It's unusual in so many ways.

Its looks, its features,

its habitat.

From the river all you can see is pristine rain-forest,

but this is an illusion.

Within just a few meters the forest turns

into oil palm plantations.

And they stretch as far as the eye can see.

NARRATOR: Palm oil is in everything from

cookies to ice-cream, toothpaste to laundry detergent

Cheap to produce, but wildlife pays a high price.

Animals like the orangutan are being driven to extinction

as their forest home is cleared

The elephants are vulnerable too.

Only 1500 remain.

Their migration routes have been squeezed,

so now they have to use the riverbanks as their pathways

and swim across the rivers to find food.

(trumpeting)

PAULA: We just heard an elephant trumpeting just back here.

Oh my gosh they're just in here.

They're just in here.

I think it's coming down to the water.

(trumpets)

There seems to be elephants all around us.

(trumpeting)

This is so exciting.

There are elephants over here, up there.

Oh my gosh, they're crossing.

It's unbelievable.

So many of these rare elephants.

It's not just one family;

it looks like several families together,

crossing in one giant group.

I've counted over 30 individuals already.

Oh, the babies are going right underwater,

completely submerged.

What really strikes me is their pinkly mottled skin.

It's the result of de-pigmentation.

And the tip of their trunks has just one,

what we call prehensile finger,

not two like the African elephant.

♪ ♪

NARRATOR: With half of their forest home already gone and

the remainder shrinking faster than anywhere else on the planet,

Bornean elephants have had to learn to adapt,

even if that means going against their natural instincts

(rattling)

The sounds of the forest have been replaced

by noises from another world.

(rattling)

Every time old palms are chopped down and replaced,

the elephants grasp at an opportunity.

PAULA: The elephants are moving in within seconds.

It's almost as if they hear the machines and it's a magnet.

It's like a Pavlov's dog reaction.

They all come running in, trumpeting excited.

(bellows)

And they're feeding on that vegetation very rapidly.

They're literally within meters of the machines

as they're working.

It's unbelievable.

The top of the palm has a sweet core,

so they've become a source of concentrated food.

(bellowing)

They're communicating at a volume so loud to hear each

other over the sound of these machines.

(bellowing)

This is not just bizarre to see elephants thriving in such close

proximity to noisy, noisy human behavior.

It's also quite tragic that they've abandoned their wild ways.

The babies are in there with their mothers.

They are witnessing everything and learning,

and they will have exactly the same reaction when they hear

the machines; they will know that means food.

(rattling)

They are incredibly adaptable, not just to the presence of

people and the dangers they might encounter with people,

but they are also very adaptable to their changing environment.

Elephants are as smart, if not smarter, than us.

NARRATOR: The Asian elephant is as far removed from its

African cousin as we are from chimpanzees.

(singing in native language)

NARRATOR: They are the smallest of all elephants with

shorter trunks and longer tails

But they have the biggest brains of any land mammal,

which serves them well as they increasingly come

into contact with us.

♪ ♪

This bull has seen a lot of change in his lifetime.

(trumpets)

He has reason to be angry.

(trumpets)

His entire world has changed.

As a calf the land around him was his playground

and his pantry.

(buzzing)

Now it's off limits.

He knows electric fences are bad news.

Sometimes they shock.

Sometimes they kill.

But all the fruit he craves lies just beyond it.

So he returns under the cover of darkness.

It's a stealth mission revealed by specialized cameras

He has his own version of night vision.

(sniffing)

A sense of smell so acute that blind elephants have

been known to lead herds.

(rustling)

Only fools goes rushing in.

(buzzing)

Bulls can sometimes be loners,

but now that we have claimed two thirds of their habitat,

they are banding together

for safety in populated areas,

and to mount raids.

(buzzing)

It's a high risk strategy, but what this bull and his friends

are about to do is truly remarkable.

♪ ♪

Few animals know how to use tools,

but he's learned he can use wood against wire,

to save himself from an electric shock.

(buzzing)

(buzzing stops)

♪ ♪

Once inside, they are silent.

No squeaks, no ear flaps.

Their large footpads act like shock absorbers.

Five tons of elephant glide past,

in ghostly silence.

Now to enjoy the fruits of their labor.

(thudding)

(barking)

(explosion)

(trumpeting)

Luckily for them it's only firecrackers tonight.

(barking)

Poisons, explosives and other lethal deterrents kill around

300 elephants a year in Sri Lanka.

(trumpeting)

(speaking in native language)

NARRATOR: Interactions like this are becoming more frequent

as new roads, fields and settlements

claim 5,500 square miles across South East Asia every year,

pushing elephants into ever closer contact with people.

To survive they've learned to anticipate human behavior and

put that knowledge to work,

for their own good.

(singing in native language)

NARRATOR: Thailand's highway 3259 is

a sugarcane transport road.

Thousands of farmers use it to get their crops to the refinery

(bellowing)

But this highway has a toll collector.

Locals call him, "The Don,"

and this is his territory.

He's a master deal maker, calculating risk versus reward

to get what he's due.

(bellows)

The Don can actually sniff out

when a delivery truck is on the way.

He can gauge quantity using his sense of smell alone,

targeting the trucks carrying the biggest loads.

Time to collect his toll.

♪ ♪

170 pounds of raw sugarcane

provides the 70,000 calories

he needs every day.

But the Don is not on his own.

He's brought some younger bulls along, henchmen,

to show them how it's done.

♪ ♪

They watch the Don's technique.

He knows that if they aren't too greedy,

the drivers will pay his toll.

And in return he and his accomplices will

stay out of their sugarcane fields.

Their observation and knowledge of us has helped elephants to

get by in an evermore human-dominated landscape.

But their long-term future may depend on us understanding

them as individuals.

♪ ♪

Paula's seen how some communities in Africa play

a positive role in reducing conflict between

humans and elephants.

She's keen to find out if similar ideas are being

tried here in Borneo.

PAULA: It's extraordinary to me that Asian elephants still

exist on this continent.

There's so much development.

So much land has been transformed for human use.

What we find is a lot of situations where people and

elephants and coming into contact with each other.

The problem is when elephants are harmed by people,

they remember it.

Sometimes they develop a culture of aggression,

attacking people which can be deadly for humans

and elephants alike.

NARRATOR: Local Bornean biologist Doctor Farina Othman

believes getting up close and personal is the best way

to forge a new human/elephant understanding.

FARINA: The first time I saw the Bornean elephants

I remember being very connected to them.

Then I decided to become the voice of the elephant.

This is Iman.

Iman mean faith.

And usually she's with her group.

But today I guess she decided to have a me time and

to enjoy the water, right?

PAULA: Using her unique approach,

Farina has become a case worker,

a translator between individual elephants and

the people who live among them.

FARINA: I get to know their personality and so we know

a few elephants, uh, which can get upset easily.

So, we will inform the local communities about

their personality and behavior, so that they themselves can

be more prepared when these elephants are close to

their land, or to their house.

Once you understand all these signals then you can avoid accidents,

and they will get comfortable being with you,

they will allow you to see them, to observe them,

to be with them.

PAULA: Farina's work is proof of how valuable it can be to

have someone local studying these elephants.

Someone who understands the needs of

both animals and people.

(bellowing)

Thanks to work like hers, people here are starting to think about

elephants differently, even making changes to help them.

And the benefits of co-existing with elephants

can work both ways.

(rumbling)

(trumpets)

NARRATOR: With greater understanding of each other and

sharing our lands, we can improve the lives of elephants

and our own in the most incredible ways.

Asian elephants have walked India's Western Ghats

for tens of thousands of years,

following routes passed down generation to generation.

Old and young trek up to 150 miles to reach

their seasonal feeding grounds.

But there is little here for them to eat on

this part of their long journey

What was once forest is now almost entirely farmland.

Warm and humid air make

the perfect conditions for growing tea.

But for elephants these lush hills might

as well be green deserts.

Tea plants contain toxins that make them bitter

and unappetizing,

so the elephants went hungry,

and sometimes left a trail of destruction as

they searched for food.

Until the farmers noticed

and decided to make a change.

One with a big impact.

They stopped using herbicides to kill the weeds around their plants,

and let volunteer giant gardeners do the work instead.

The elephants not only consumed the weeds,

they also leave behind a nutrient rich fertilizer.

And because they now have natural,

rather than chemical weed control,

the farmers' tea is 100% organic,

and elephant friendly.

The elephants now have a much needed rest stop,

and a chance to refuel.

By cooperating, everyone wins.

With full bellies, the elephants continue on

the final leg of this long migration.

For many the destination is the Kabini Forest.

(bellows)

A 250 square mile reserve,

and one of the greatest wildlife spots in India.

♪ ♪

Every year a dam is opened below this floodplain.

The river drains, and is replaced for two months

by lush grassland,

creating a manmade elephant utopia.

Once a year families can safely unite at

the end of their long migration

Old friendships are renewed.

(squeals)

New acquaintances made.

(squeals)

A space created by people

providing a much needed haven for elephants.

(squealing)

PAULA: Elephants and humans evolved together.

(chirping)

We have it in our DNA, we sense it when we see them.

And we feel their roars and their trumpeting and

their rumbling deep in our bones.

(roaring)

If we keep elephants in our lives,

and we keep elephants in these landscapes,

we sustain a part of our own ancient cultures and traditions,

because these animals teach us something about ourselves.

♪ ♪

♪ ♪

Captioned by Cotter Media Group.

Repair and Synchronization by Easy Subtitles Synchronizer 1.0.0.0