Elephant population study: 27,312 elephants across 23 states
There are 27,312 elephants across 23 states in the country, a preliminary assessment of the first-ever All India Synchronised Asian Elephant Population Estimation revealed. The elephant population is concentrated largely in the Southern region and Northeast region, making up for over 22,000 elephants. Karnataka alone is home to 6,049 pachyderms, the highest in any state. Minister for Environment, Forest and Climate Change Dr Harsh Vardhan released the preliminary results on Saturday, World Elephant Day.
The first cut estimate of elephant population is based only on direct count method, which involves direct sighting and counting of elephants in sample grid blocks, officials associated with the exercise said. Finer details on densities in specific habitats and regions are awaited in the final report. Though the estimation exercise is to undergo complete analysis of statistics, the preliminary numbers are lesser by 3,000 compared to the 2012 estimation. The 2012 estimation had found out that there were a little over 30,000 elephants across 16 states.
Professor Raman Sukumar, Centre for Ecological Sciences, Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru and a lead collaborator on the project, however, said, “The current numbers should not compared with the 2012 population estimate as the methods were different. We adopted a uniform …read more
