Extremely Dangerous Must

The above is an extreme case of must which occurred in Tamilnadhu, India 2003. This is news footage from a local newsroom. The elephant in question would be approx. 30 years old and be working as a logging elephant, based on the gear he's wearing. He was impossible to catch even after sedation, and was loose for nearly 2 weeks. Needless to say how many people were killed and how much damage he caused.

He's way too fat which makes him all the more dangerous. In Thailand, how fat we allow a bull to get will depend much on his temperament and tendancies. For example, at one camp where I worked, the bull worked throughout his must without any problems whatsoever.

A friend did a research project on elephants in must some 6 or 7 years ago. She would take blood samples from elephants, seperate the blood from the fluids [where all the harmones are stored], by means of a centrifuge and send those samples back to the US for analysis. The reason for this was because way too little is known about the must period. If you look at deer, for example, all males come into runt at the same time. And this is the case for most herd animals. But not with elephants!!
There seems to be no seasonal connection to elephant must. Each individual has his must at his own time.
Hence this research. Later on, females and younger elephants were also included in the research.

What they found out was that first of all, elephants produce a harmone that is normally only produced by primates, meaning monkeys, apes and humans. This new knowledge puts a whole new perspective on the elephant world. When the bull enters must, this harmone increases together with adrenaline production. This means that the elephant is the only creature that can hide a foot of his chain under his feet and pretend like he's at the end of his chain. One move, and whatever is nearby is dead.
The bull above is extremely agitated by his must. Again as is often the case, the mahout either missed or ignored the oncoming must, otherwise this elephant would have been isolated and chained up between 2 strong trees to prevent him from hurting himself and others.

With other chosen videos, the subject of must will be more elaborated on.