Male elephants are far more social than we thought

The bull elephant has long had a reputation. Solitary, unpredictable and in all probability best encountered from a distance. A 2026 study from Uttarakhand's Rajaji National Park suggests that reputation is only partly deserved.

Male Asian elephants form all-male groups with far greater regularity than previously recognised, and the patterns behind these associations carry direct implications for how India manages its most fraught wildlife conflict.

The study tracked 219 male elephants across 475 square kilometres of terrain spanning dense forest, riverine patches, and open land adjoining human settlements. Researchers from the Wildlife Institute of India divided the landscape into a grid and surveyed each cell ten times between February and May 2024, identifying individuals through ear shape, tusk structure, tail markings, and scars. Using spatially explicit capture-recapture modelling, the team estimated around 40 adult males in the study area, a figure considered more reliable than counts produced by conventional methods.

More from Lifestyle

Of the 706 elephants recorded, roughly half of all male sightings placed them in mixed-sex herds. Solitary bulls accounted for just under 30 per cent, and all-male groups made up 19.4 per cent.

Age as the sharpest predictor

Juveniles were 66 times more likely to be found in mixed herds than in all-male configurations; sub-adults, 22 times more likely. The pattern flipped in early adulthood, when males began gravitating toward same-sex associations. Older bulls were most often seen alone, occasionally rejoining herds.

Reproductive state mattered too. Males in musth, the periodic hormonal condition associated with elevated testosterone and heightened aggression, were more frequently observed in mixed-sex herds.

Outside of musth, males were more likely to be found in all-male company. Evidence points to male elephants exhibiting extensive and flexible social behaviour comparable in complexity to that of females, a conclusion gaining traction across studies of both wild and captive populations, though field data from Asian males specifically has remained limited.

Where the groups form

All-male groups clustered disproportionately in open landscapes, grasslands and scrublands, near human settlements. These are also the zones most associated with crop foraging, and the overlap is unlikely to be coincidental.

Research on the broader Rajaji-Corbett landscape has found that nearly a fifth of the area surveyed is at high risk of human-elephant conflict, concentrated in flat agricultural zones where human population density is highest. Male elephants congregating in structured groups within exactly these areas raises the possibility that all-male associations may function partly as a collective strategy in fragmented, resource-rich landscapes.

A 2019 study from southern India found something similar. Male Asian elephants formed stable, long-term all-male groups predominantly in non-forested or human-modified areas, while tending toward solitary behaviour or mixed-sex association within forested habitats.

The Rajaji data suggests this is not a regional anomaly. For forest departments, the practical implication is a shift in approach — from broad landscape-wide responses to targeted monitoring of specific individuals and known groupings. If managers can identify which males reliably associate and where those associations tend to form, early warning systems and conflict-mitigation efforts can be far more precisely deployed.

It turns out the lone bull is less brooding loner, more reluctant socialite — give him the right age and the right scrubland and he will find his people.