Monday, 30 October 2017

Assam Leads in Population of Wild Elephants in North East India

The countrywide elephant estimation carried out this year has found 10,139 elephants in Northeast India.

The report, Synchronized Elephant Population Estimation India 2017, was released in New Delhi in August 2017 by Union minister for environment, forest and climate change Harsh Vardhan, who launched Gaj Yatra in the national capital on World Elephant Day as a nationwide campaign to protect elephants.

The campaign is planned to cover 12 elephant-range states. Assam has the maximum number of elephants, in North East India -- 5,719, followed by 1,754 in Meghalaya and 1,614 in Arunachal Pradesh. The population of elephants in North Bengal has been included in the Northeast population.

A population of 27,312 elephants was estimated from 23 states in the country by the direct count method.

The present "first report" of the elephant population estimation 2017 presents results only from the direct count method.

Though a nationwide population census exercise for elephants is conducted every five years, this is the first time that an all-India synchronised elephant census was carried out.

The director-general of forests and special secretary, ministry of environment, forest and climate change, Sidhanta Das says in the report that for the first time, all states have agreed to adopt a uniform set of methodologies to map elephant distribution, estimation of wild elephant populations by direct and indirect (dung count) methods and assessment of the structure of the populations for their demographic health.

In the coming months, the final report will be released which will see refinement of results from the direct count method, analysing data from the dung count method, producing high resolution maps in a geographic information system (GIS) domain and compiling information on elephant population profile across various regions.

In Arunachal Pradesh, elephants are distributed over 22 forest divisions and 30 to 60 per cent of the elephant distribution area from each division was selected for sampling by the direct count method. A total of 139 sample blocks were randomly selected and enumerated in Arunachal Pradesh.

Analysis of the above indicated an overall elephant density of 0.23 elephants per square km in Arunachal Pradesh.

In Assam, elephants are found in 36 forest divisions. A total area of 11,601 square km was sampled for block count direct method for the state and the elephant density of 0.38 animals per square kilometre was estimated for this state.

In Meghalaya, much of the elephant habitat area is under community forest. A total of 232 blocks were sampled in the state and the overall density was 0.16 elephants per square kilometre.

The report states that the results presented should be interpreted with caution.

Credits : Telegraph India 2017

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