Unnatural causes claim more than 490 wild elephant lives in five years

Subject : Environment

Section: Species in news

Context:

A capacity-building workshop on ‘Minimising elephant mortalities on railway track’ for the officials of Indian Railways is being organised at the Dehradun-based Wildlife Institute of India (WII).

Elephant population in India:

India has nearly 30,000 wild elephants.
- Karnataka had the highest number of wild elephants at 6,049, followed by Assam at 5,719, Kerala at 5,706, and Tamil Nadu at 2,761. 32 elephant reserves cover around 76,508-sq-km area in 14 States.

Elephant in captivity:
- India had 2,589 elephants in private custody, excluding the zoological parks.
- 902 captive elephants are in Assam, followed by Kerala -518, Karnataka – 146, TamilNadu – 135, Rajasthan- 113, Arunachal Pradesh – 109, West Bengal- 100, Tripura – 64, Nagaland – 15 and Meghalaya – eight.
Elephant death:
- India has lost 494 elephants to train-hit incidents, electrocution, poaching, and poisoning over the past five years.
- India lost more than 57 elephants per year due to electrocution and more than 12 elephants per year due to collisions with trains over the past five years.
- Assam had the highest number of elephant deaths due to train hits with 62 deaths, followed by West Bengal at 57, and Odisha at 27.

Loss of herd dynamics:

Loss of older elephants disrupts herd dynamics and increases the risk of human-elephant conflict, as younger elephants are more likely to stray into human-dominated areas.

Measures taken:

150 elephant corridors across 15 elephant ranges in the country have been ground-validated.
Mitigate the impact of power transmission lines and other power infrastructure on elephants and other wildlife.
Permanent and temporary speed restrictions have been imposed in identified elephant corridors and habitats.