Across Asia,
two of the world's most intelligent species...
are figuring out how to coexist.
We may keep a close eye on them...
but they're also watching us and learning.
Masters of adaptation,
Asian elephants are adjusting to our ways,
while we're trying to understand them
and learn their secrets.
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 up spread
across most of southern Asia.
Dr. Paula Kahumbu's searching Borneo's Kinabatangan River
for the smallest
and rarest of them.
An expert on the African savanna elephant,
she's here to see how the Bornean elephant,
known by some as the Pygmy,
is adapting to its rapidly changing environment.
I can see footprints. I can see lots of footprints.
Look at that!
I can't see these elephants. I can just hear them.
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 rainforest.
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.
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 1,500 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.
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.
There seems to be elephants all around us.
This is so exciting. There are elephants over here, up there.
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.
The babies are going right underwater,
completely submerged.
What really strikes me is their pinkly mottled skin.
It's the result of depigmentation.
And the tip of their trunks has just one, what we call, prehensile finger,
not two, like the African elephant.
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.
The sounds of the forest
have been replaced by noises
from another world.
Every time old palms are chopped down and replaced,
the elephants grasp at an opportunity.
The elephants are moving in within seconds.
It's almost as if they hear the machines,
and it's a magnet.
It's like Pavlov's dog reaction.
They all come running in, trumpeting, excited.
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.
They're communicating at a volume so loud...
to hear each other over the sound of these machines.
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.
They are incredibly adaptable,
not just to the presence of people and the dangers
they might encounter with people,
but they're also very adaptable to their changing environment.
Elephants are as smart, if not smarter, than us.
The Asian elephant is as far removed from its African cousin
as we are from chimpanzees.
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.
He has reason to be angry.
His entire world has changed.
As a calf, the land around him was his playground...
and his pantry.
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.
A sense of smell so acute...
that blind elephants
have been known to lead herds.
Only fools go rushing in.
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.
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.
Once inside, they are silent.
No squeaks,
no earflaps.
Their large footpads act like shock absorbers.
Five tons of elephants glide past...
in ghostly silence.
Now...
to enjoy the fruits of their labor.
Luckily for them, it's only firecrackers tonight.
Poisons, explosives,
and other lethal deterrents
kill around 300 elephants a year in Sri Lanka.
Interactions like this are becoming more frequent
as new roads, fields, and settlements
claim 5,500 square miles across Southeast Asia every year...
CAUTION ELEPHANT CROSSING
...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.
Thailand's Highway 3259
is a sugarcane transport road.
Thousands of farmers use it to get their crops to the refinery.
But this highway has a toll collector.
Locals call him "the Don."
And this... is his territory.
He's a master dealmaker,
calculating risk versus reward...
to get what he's due.
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.
One hundred seventy 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 ever more 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.
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
are 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.
Local Bornean biologist, Dr. Farina Othman,
believes getting up close and personal is the best way to forge
a new human-elephant understanding.
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 means "faith."
And usually, she is with her group.
But today,
I guess she decided to have a me-time
- and to enjoy the water, right?
Using her unique approach,
Farina has become a caseworker,
a translator between individual elephants and the people who live among them.
I get to know their personality,
and so we know a few elephants
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.
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.
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.
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 consume 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.
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 man-made elephant utopia.
Once a year,
families can safely unite
at the end of their long migration.
Old friendships are renewed.
New acquaintances made.
A space created by people...
providing a much-needed haven for elephants.
Elephants and humans evolved together.
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.
If we keep elephants in our lives and keep elephants in these landscapes...
we sustain a part of our own ancient cultures and traditions...
because these animals teach us something about ourselves.