India’s wild elephant population estimates have dropped sharply by a quarter, a government survey incorporating a new DNA system has found, marking the most accurate but sobering count yet.<\/p>\n
India is home to the majority of the world’s remaining wild Asian elephants, a species listed as endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and increasingly threatened by shrinking habitat.<\/p>\n
The Wildlife Institute of India’s new All-India Elephant Estimation report released this week puts the wild elephant population at 22,446 – down from nearly 29,964 estimated in 2017, a fall of 25%.<\/p>\n
The survey drew on genetic analysis of more than 21,000 dung samples, alongside a vast network of camera traps and 667,000km of foot surveys.<\/p>\n
But researchers said the methodological overhaul meant the results were “not comparable to past figures and may be treated as a new monitoring baseline”.<\/p>\n
‘Gentle giants’<\/p>\n
But the report also warned that the figures reflect deepening pressures on one of India’s most iconic animals.<\/p>\n
“The present distribution of elephants in India represents a mere fraction of their historical range,” it said, estimating they now occupy only about 3.5 percent of the area they once roamed.<\/p>\n
Habitat loss, fragmentation, and increasing human-elephant conflict are driving the decline.<\/p>\n
“Electrocution and railway collisions cause a significant number of elephant fatalities, while mining and highway construction disrupt habitats, intensifying man-wildlife conflicts,” the report added.<\/p>\n
The Western Ghats, lush southern highlands stretching through Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, and Kerala, remain a key stronghold with nearly 12,00 elephants.<\/p>\n
But even there, populations are increasingly cut off from one another by commercial plantations, farmland fencing, and human encroachment.<\/p>\n
Another major population centre lies in India’s northeast, including Assam and the Brahmaputra floodplains, which host more than 6,500 elephants.<\/p>\n
“Strengthening corridors and connectivity, restoring habitat, improving protection, and mitigating the impact of development projects are the need of the hour to ensure the well-being of these gentle giants,” the report said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"India’s wild elephant population estimates have dropped sharply by a quarter, a government survey incorporating a new DNA…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":204511,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[90,56,54,55,4407],"class_list":{"0":"post-204510","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wildlife","8":"tag-science","9":"tag-uk","10":"tag-united-kingdom","11":"tag-unitedkingdom","12":"tag-wildlife"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/204510","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=204510"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/204510\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/204511"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=204510"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=204510"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=204510"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}