{"id":228783,"date":"2025-10-16T10:21:14","date_gmt":"2025-10-16T10:21:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/228783\/"},"modified":"2025-10-16T10:21:14","modified_gmt":"2025-10-16T10:21:14","slug":"indias-wild-elephant-numbers-drop-by-18-per-cent-first-dna-based-count-shows","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/228783\/","title":{"rendered":"India&#8217;s wild elephant numbers drop by 18 per cent, first DNA-based count shows"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>NEW DELHI: India&#8217;s wild elephant population has been estimated at 22,446, lower than the 2017 figure of 27,312, according to the country&#8217;s first-ever DNA-based count.<\/p>\n<p>The All-India Synchronous Elephant Estimation (SAIEE) 2025 puts India&#8217;s elephant population between 18,255 and 26,645, with an average of 22,446.<\/p>\n<p>The government released the long-delayed report on Tuesday, nearly four years after the survey began in 2021.<\/p>\n<p>Officials said the delay was due to the complex genetic analysis and data validation involved in the exercise.<\/p>\n<p>Scientists collected 21,056 dung samples from across elephant landscapes and used DNA fingerprinting to identify individual animals, much like identifying humans through their genetic code.<\/p>\n<p>The total field effort covered nearly 6.7 lakh km of forest trails and included over 3.1 lakh dung plots.<\/p>\n<p>Region-wise, the Western Ghats remain the biggest stronghold with 11,934 elephants, followed by the North Eastern Hills and Brahmaputra floodplains with 6,559.<\/p>\n<p>The Shivalik Hills and Gangetic plains support 2,062 elephants, while Central India and the Eastern Ghats together have 1,891.<\/p>\n<p>Karnataka continues to host the largest number of elephants at 6,013, followed by Assam (4,159), Tamil Nadu (3,136), Kerala (2,785) and Uttarakhand (1,792).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NEW DELHI: India&#8217;s wild elephant population has been estimated at 22,446, lower than the 2017 figure of 27,312,&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":228784,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[50],"tags":[127940,200,79,127939],"class_list":["post-228783","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-genetics","tag-dna-based-count","tag-genetics","tag-science","tag-wild-elephants"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/228783","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=228783"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/228783\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/228784"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=228783"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=228783"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=228783"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}