Villagers in India Find 'Drunk' Elephants Asleep After They Allegedly Drank Alcohol

Villagers in east India came upon a strange sight on Wednesday: their liquor pots broken and emptied and two dozen elephants asleep on the ground near the area.

The villagers who live in the Keonjhar district believe that the herd of jumbo elephants had taken a drink from their large pots — which were being used to ferment a traditional Indian alcohol called "mahua" — and passed out, according to the Press Trust of India.

"We went into the jungle at around 6 a.m. to prepare mahua and found that all the pots were broken and the fermented water [was] missing," villager Naria Sethi told the Press Trust of India. "We also found that the elephants were sleeping. They consumed the fermented water and got drunk."

The villagers were unable to wake the slumbering elephants, so they called wildlife officials who brought in drums to make a loud enough noise to wake them up, according to The Sunday Times. Once awoken, the elephants scattered from the scene.

Kartick Satyanarayan, a chief executive of Wildlife SOS, a non-profit that helps rescue and rehabilitate wildlife in India, told The Times that he has doubts about the story because "usually one elephant looks out for the rest of the herd, so it seems a bit unusual."

But, he also noted that mahua is a favorite among Indian wild elephants.

"They love it. It's pure, it's tasty, and it's powerful," Satyanarayan said. "When they smell it, they can poke their trunks into kitchens or break down walls to get to it. Once finished, they stagger back home, toppling the odd tree or house on the way."

However, the elephants' love for mahua can sometimes turn deadly.

In April, The Times of India reported that a herd of elephants had killed five people in the Jaisingh Nagar forest range who had been collecting mahua within a span of two days.

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J S Chouhan, chief wildlife warden in Madhya Pradesh, told the Times of India that he issued a warning to villagers to stay away from forest areas, where elephants were spotted, and stop brewing mahua because elephants would be able to smell it.

There have been other similar stories told over the years about elephant rampages possibly due to drinking alcohol.

However, Steve Morris, a biologist at the University of Bristol in England, told National Geographic that "elephants gently warm their brains with fermented fruits," and there is no evidence to suggest that elephants can get drunk.