Elephants are vegetarians, but they are not picky eaters. They’ll eat most parts of a plant—grains, grass and leaves, stems, twigs, bark. On a tea estate in the Sonitpur district of Assam in 2017, three wild elephants broke into a workers’ shop at 2:00 a.m. and helped themselves to the cotton fiber product known as rupees. They broke open the cash box and consumed 26,000 rupees in large denominations. One thing Indian elephants won’t eat is tea leaves. Everyone here likes to drink tea, but few, human or beast, like to eat it. The leaves are too bitter. Small crop losses result when elephants
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