A young tusker walks along Aala Halla in Lokkere reserve forest (RF), an important migratory corridor connecting two parts of Bandipur Tiger Reserve. Ecological restoration in this landscape over the last 12-years involving Junglescapes (an NGO specialising in ecological restoration) has created a very healthy habitat for elephants, with excellent grass cover and numerous browsing trees / shrub species. The area has been made almost completely free of the exotic invasive Lantana camara. Usage of the habitat by elephants … Read More
Capture of Coimbatore’s Crop-eating, Peaceful Elephant, Chinna Thambi
Chinna Thambi, a 25-year old tusker from the Anaikatti region in Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu, was relocated to Anamalai Tiger Reserve on 26th January, 2018. This was done following repeated complaints by a section of farmers from the region that the elephant was raiding crops and breaking into houses for food. These agricultural lands are adjacent to Thadagam Reserve Forest and Anaikatti South Reserve Forest of Coimbatore Forest Division. Perhaps because this particular bull had never attacked anyone, the indigenous community … Read More
Inviolate Spaces Act as Refugia for Conflict Prone Asiatic Elephant
Authors Varun R. Goswami, Divya Vasudev and Madan K. Oli use population modeling to demonstrate the detrimental effects of mortality resulting from human–wildlife conflict on long-term persistence of the endangered Asian elephant. Below are the highlights of their study, “The importance of conflict-induced mortality for conservation planning in areas of human–elephant co-occurrence” published in Biological Conservation (Volume 176) in 2014.
A long-standing debate in wildlife conservation is whether we need inviolate spaces, or spaces devoid of human presence, for long-term … Read More
Lights on for Elephants
Technology offers solutions for Human-Elephant Conflicts.
The dark hulks ambled in a single file across the stark green landscape of thigh-high tea bushes. Without a pause in their stride, the elephants made their way towards a tiny patch of forest. Save for the tree crickets, there were no other sounds. Had it been daytime, the elephants would have been harassed by people behaving like neurotic monkeys. On such occasions, despite their size, the elephants seemed so vulnerable, with nowhere to … Read More
Elephants in Chandaka — Banished From Their Homes
With inputs from Aditya Panda.
(This article was first published in The Pioneer dated Aug 29, 2012 under the title ‘Banished from their homes’).
In 1967, a wild tigress from the Chandaka forest on the outskirts of Bhubaneswar walked into the Nandankanan Zoo nearby, lured by the calls of a male tiger in one of the moated exhibits, and jumped in to join him, surely unaware that there was no way out. The tigress –– later named ‘Kanan’ –– lived … Read More
‘Gajah’: The Report of the Elephant Task Force
A major report on securing the future for the Elephant in India was today submitted to the Minister of Environment & Forests. The report lays out a comprehensive action agenda for protecting elephants in the wild and in captivity, and for addressing human-elephant conflict. The Minister welcomed the Report and promised speedy implementation of the major recommendations.
The Executive Summary is posted here. The full report can be downloaded from the MOEF website here.
Executive Summary
Securing a future … Read More
Elephants near Human Settlements
This was photographed in the backwaters of the Kabini River in Nagarahole Tiger Reserve. Across the river, just outside the reserve (Gendathur side of Bandipur Tiger Reserve), there are a lot of human settlements. Elephant Proof Trenches (EPT) protecting this area do little to stop the herds. Elephants easily swim across from the Nagarahole side to graze on grass on the Bandipur side, bringing them into frequent conflicts with humans. Cattle grazing occurs near the human settlements in the morning, … Read More
Elephant Rescue, Valparai
It was that time of the year again, when elephants slowly started marking their presence. Like every year, there were incidents of households getting hit here and there, thankfully, nothing major though. What is always interesting to note every year is the consistency they maintain in terms of their movement patterns, and also in the damage sites they choose! Early that morning I decided to take off from my daily routine in front of my Macbook’s hypnotizing screen. I went … Read More
Elephants and Dhole, Anamalai Tiger Reserve
This image was taken on June 3rd, 2014 at Anamalai Tiger Reserve (ATR) in Tamil Nadu. We were driving from Aliyar in the foothills to Valparai and a group of around 50 tourists were cheering and screaming, we got down to see what was going on. An amazing drama was unfolding in front of us — a herd of elephants (7) were chasing away a pack of dhole (around 20) along the banks of the Aliyar reservoir!
As this road … Read More
Human-Elephant Conflict, Coimbatore
Though an old picture (taken in 2012), this image shows the rise of Human-Elephant Conflict (HEC) in the The Thadagam valley of Coimbatore. This area has become a major centre for brick production and the numerous brick kilns have drastically altered the landscape and interfered with the animal movement in the area. The outskirts of Coimbatore have served as traditional elephant migratory corridors connecting the various major forested regions of the Western and Eastern Ghats.
These two tuskers were standing … Read More
Tusker in Tea, Munnar
Asiatic Elephant (Elephas maximus) is the largest land animal in India. Poached for ivory, large tusked males are a rare sight nowadays. Eravikulam National Park in Kerala is surrounded by tea estates. A number of shola patches were destroyed decades ago when the tea estates were established. These estates are used as corridors by elephants when moving to other forest patches, thereby bringing them into conflict with humans.… Read More
Developing Simple and Innovative Techniques to Monitor Elephants
Authors V. R. Goswami, M.V. Lauretta, M. D. Madhusudan and K. U. Karanth have developed an automated process to identify individual adult male elephants effectively. These are the highlights of their study published in the journal, Animal Conservation in 2011.
There are an estimated 40,000 wild Asian elephants (Elephas maximus) spread across 13 countries in Asia (Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Nepal and Sri Lanka in South Asia and Cambodia, China, Indonesia, Lao PDR, Malaysia, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam). According … Read More
Have You Seen This Tusker?
December, 2004, Ghasiram Sot, Chilla Range, Rajaji National Park. The mixed Sal forests along the foothills of the Himalayas were quiet. The nomadic Gujjar pastoralists who had occupied these forests had vacated as part of a voluntary resettlement program, and there was lush Saccharum spontaneum grass in the once heavily overgrazed dry river beds. Emerging from the tall grass, I came face to face with a magnificent tusker. Surprisingly, he did not react, but stood tall, calm and composed, his … Read More
Camera-trapping Mammals in Pakke Tiger Reserve
Photographs by Forest Department staff of Pakke Tiger Reserve.
Intensive camera trapping by state forest departments (as per Phase-IV of NTCA) to monitor tiger populations, is now being done on a yearly basis in tiger reserves across India. This was done for the first time in Pakke Tiger Reserve in Arunachal Pradesh. Here are some stunning images of fabulous mammals captured during this season’s monitoring exercise. This effort has been mainly undertaken by the forest department staff of Pakke … Read More
Book Launch : The Story of Asia’s Elephants — New Delhi, April 30th 2013
Wildlife Trust of India (WTI) cordially invites you to the launch of Dr Raman Sukumar’s book: The Story of Asia’s Elephants.
The relationship between elephants and people in Asia over thousands of years is a unique one. This book is not an art history, but rather an ecological and cultural history of the Asian elephant. The focus is on India because of the great significance of the elephant in this ancient civilization as well as the profusion of material, both … Read More
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