A study published by a team of wildlife scientists provides strong evidence of altruistic behaviour in a population of wild elephants in northeast India. On two separate occasions, adult male elephants rescued adult females that were sedated by the research team for their work. The lead author of the study is Arjun Kamdar and the co-authors include Samshul Ali, Hiten Kumar Baishya, Kaushik Barua, Rangjalu Basumatary, Parikshit Kakati, Nripen Kalita, Bibhuti Mazumder, Raju Saikia, Anupam Sarmah, Kushal Konwar Sharma, David Smith, Nitin Sekar.

This work was led by researchers from the World Wide Fund for Nature, India (WWF), the Assam State Forest Department, the University of Cambridge, International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), Asian Elephant Specialist Group, and several other NGOs and government bodies. To ensure accuracy, detailed observations were corroborated using interviews, photographs, and videos. A full list is available in the international peer-reviewed scientific journal Biotropica, Wiley Publishers where this paper has been published open-access.