India, Feb. 20 -- When Rivaldo, the well-known tusker of the Sigur plateau in the Nilgiri district of Tamil Nadu, died on February 13 at around 50 years of age, forest watchers and residents across the region felt an unusual sense of personal loss.

Many elephants move through this corridor landscape connecting the Eastern and Western Ghats each year, yet only a few remain long enough to become part of local memory. Rivaldo was one such animal.

For decades he walked the forests and settlement edges linking Mudumalai, Bandipur, Wayanad and Sathyamangalam, a region that forms one of the most important elephant landscapes in the world.

Over the years, Rivaldo slowly became woven into the locality's collective memory. Forest guards knew his...