Yahoo News Cherished elephant dies after extraordinarily long life in India
An elephant believed to have been among the oldest in the world living in captivity has died in India.
Conservationists say Indria lived into her eighties at the Sakrebailu elephant camp in the southern Indian state of Karnataka, the BBC reports.
It is estimated she lived to the age of “between 85 and 90” and died from “age-related illnesses” at the Shettihalli Wildlife Sanctuary.
The elephant, who had lived at the forest sanctuary since 1968, had become senile and was suffering from arthritis and respiratory distress, according to English-language Indian newspaper The Hindu.
Indria stopped eating completely over the past ten days and the cause of her death was confirmed as an “acute inflammation of the peritoneum” following an autopsy.
The sanctuary’s veterinarian Dr Vinay told BBC Hindi: “She must have been between 85 to 90 years. Normally, around the age of 60-65 years, an elephant loses its molars.
“Indria was on a soft food diet for almost two decades. About 15 years ago, she lost sight in one eye and about a month ago, she developed a cataract in the other eye.”
The secret to Indria's long life may have been her eating a lot of greens, staff added.
The elephant was cremated, leaving a total of 22 elephants at the camp.
According to Guinness World Records (GWR), the oldest elephant ever kept in captivity was officially Lin Wang, an Asian elephant, who died on 26 February 2003 aged 86, at Taipei Zoo, Taiwan.
“Grandpa Lin, as he became known, carried supplies through the jungles of Myanmar (formerly Burma) for the Japanese army, during World War II,” GWR said.
“He was even taken prisoner by the Chinese in 1943. Lin Wang retired to the Zoo in 1954. The average age of an Asian elephant is 60 years.”
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