Guwahati, Nov. 1 -- Grasses account for more than 81% of the food consumed by Asian elephants in tea gardens and adjoining landscapes of Assam's Udalguri district, with researchers recording 84 grass-feeding events among 103 observations during a field study.

The findings, published in the Journal of Threatened Taxa, highlight the ecological importance of grass-rich habitats within tea estates and underline the challenges of managing human-elephant interactions in a landscape increasingly shaped by plantations, agriculture and fragmented forests.

The study, titled Feeding Habits of Asian Elephants in Tea Gardens of Assam, India, examined the daytime feeding behaviour of elephants in Udalguri, a high-conflict district in the Bodoland Ter...