Nagarhole National Park in India has en electric fence around it, in order to keep elephants in the park and off the farms. The current is sufficient to deter the elephants without harming them.  Imagine my surprise, early one morning, when I came across a heavily pregnant cow elephant on the path, still warm but very dead. She had got out through a gap somewhere and had evidently been trying to find her way back when she touched a live power cable that ran parallel to the fence. She appeared to have died instantly. She just dropped to the ground. The only sign of injury was a gash near the tip of her trunk. A small crowd gathered and a message sent to the Park Authorities.

A guard was despatched, to guard the body. We had met before and I begged a cigarette. We agreed that it had been a mistake to run the cable so low to the ground. I asked him if this had happened before?
"Oh yes. Thomas Edison did it, almost one hundred years ago".
I must have looked incredulous.
"You've never heard of Thomas Edison?", he asked.
Not in that context, no.
"Thomas Edison made a film of an elephant being electrocuted with 6000 volts of alternating curent. He wanted to show how dangerous his rival's electricity was".
I stared in disbelief.
"The war of the currents". He smiled and bobbed his head. "Usually in America they hang elephants. They treat them very badly there".
Some boys were trying to cut hairs from the elephant's flanks. The guard chased them away and by the time he had finished shouting his boss had arrived, I went home for breakfast.