This was published in Oryx, February 2011.
India is home to a population of c. 26,000 Asian elephant Elephas maximus over an area of c. 110,000 km2. Currently 65,000 km2 of this area is declared as 32 Elephant Reserves across Protected Areas (30%), Reserved Forests (40%) and private lands (30%). Securing this landscape for the elephant is a challenging task in a country that has an expanding economy and over a billion people competing for space, some of it with … Read More
Two highways pass through Bandipur Tiger Reserve. NH-67 (Gundlupet-Ooty Road) and NH-212 (Gundlupet-Sultan Batthery Road) and both those highways experience heavy traffic. The traffic on NH-67 is typically tourist traffic from Karnataka to the hill resort of Ooty, while on NH 212 there is heavy passenger and truck traffic plying to northern Kerala.
Due to speeding vehicles several animals mostly chital, nocturnal animals such as civets, black-naped hare, mouse deer were killed in large numbers. Roadkills shockingly included the illustrated … Read More
Once a killer track, Rajaji Park has seen no elephant deaths in six years.
Over the past seven years, over 75 elephants have been killed in train accidents across India — more than those killed by poaching, at least officially — and the carnage continues in Assam, North Bengal, Uttar Pradesh, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu. Yet, in the same period, no blood was shed on the track that cuts through Rajaji National Park (Uttarakhand) and its Chilla-Motichur elephant corridor. This … Read More
BHUBANESWAR: In the last 19 years in Orissa, 231 elephants fell victim to poachers while 166 were killed in accidents and 173 more died from natural causes, says a wildlife NGO. While the government gives more conservative estimates, experts say there is enough cause for alarm.
Biswajit Mohanty, secretary of NGO Wildlife Society of Orissa , who gave IANS the figures, said at least 155 of the elephants died due to electrocution in over 10 years.
“Immediate measures are required … Read More
The Railways and the Wildlife officials of both the West Bengal government and Centre today unanimously agreed to declare the entire 164-km stretch between Siliguri and Alipurdiar on the North East Frontier Railway as an “elephant corridor” and put a speed restriction of 45 kmph on all the trains – day and night.
Both the sides formulated and agreed on a number of other steps to prevent recurrence of such animal dashing by speeding trains, official sources said.
On Wednesday … Read More
Incident once again raises questions over movement of trains along the elephant corridor.
Seven elephants of a herd died after being hit by a goods train in the Banarhat area of Jalpaiguri district (West Bengal) on Wednesday night.
While four were killed on the spot, the rest died on Thursday. The dead include a sub-adult and two juvenile elephants, Divisional Forest Officer (Wild Life II) Sumita Ghatak told The Hindu over telephone.
The incident has once again raised questions over … Read More
With an estimated 26,000 elephants India is home to half the world’s population of Asian elephants (Elephas maximus). These pachyderms are spread over a geographical area of about 110,000 sq km, sixty percent of which have been declared as 32 Elephant Reserves (ER).
A different concept from the conventional Protected Areas (PAs), ERs consist of a mixture of land categories. PAs (30%), Reserved Forests (40%) and private lands (30%) form the land tenure of ERs. Securing this landscape in pursuit … Read More
India is home to the largest number of Asiatic Elephants. The last census in 2007 estimated the population at 27,000, a supposed increase of over 1,000 from five years ago. But before we jump to the happy conclusion that ‘all is well’ with the elephant, we must closely examine this claim of an upward trend, which seems dubious in the face of the twin threats that the species continues to face – poaching and habitat loss. Only about five percent … Read More
Villagers wait for a herd of elephants to cross near Karapura village in Nagarahole National Park, Karnataka.… Read More
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