Elephant
In 2008, the IUCN listed the Asian elephant as endangered due to a 50% population decline over the past 60–75 years while CITES lists the species under Appendix I. Asian elephants once ranged from Syria and Iraq (the subspecies "Elephas maximus asurus"), to China (up to the Yellow River) and Java. It is now extinct in these areas, and the current range of Asian elephants is highly fragmented. The total population of Asian elephants is estimated to be around 40,000–50,000, although this may be a loose estimate. It is likely that around half of the population is in India. Although Asian elephants are declining in numbers overall, particularly in Southeast Asia, the population in the Western Ghats appears to be increasing.
Asian elephant
At most seasons of the year, Asian elephants are timid and much more ready to flee from a foe than to attack. However, solitary rogues are frequently an exception to this rule, and sometimes make unprovoked attacks on passers-by. Rogue elephants sometimes take up a position near a road, making it impassable to travellers. Females with calves are at all times dangerous to approach. When an Asian elephant makes a charge, it tightly curls up its trunk and attacks by trampling its victim with feet or knees, or, if a male, by pinning it to the ground with its tusks. During musth, bulls are highly dangerous, not only to human beings, but also to other animals. At the first indications, trained elephants are secured tightly to prevent any mishaps. There is also one case of a rogue elephant having actually consumed a human, an attack merited to be extremely unnatural. The elephant, a rogue female, had previously lost her calf to an accident involving farmers. This grievous loss led the elephant to target humans first as a threat, and then as a food source as her mental state deteriorated until she was finally killed and later dissected, revealing through DNA analysis that she had indeed consumed human flesh. The incident was revealed to the general public in several articles and in the Animal Planet documentary "World's Deadliest Towns: Man-Eating Elephant".