Elephant Corridor under scrutiny

Dipankar Bose, The Statesman
May 13, 2007
JHARKHAND, May 12—Following the reports of tiger deaths in Sariska wildlife sanctuary, the four-day long task of counting the number of elephants present in the states of Jharkhand, Orissa, Chattisgarh and West Bengal, concluded today. The census was carried in these states as they make a distinct “Elephant Corridor”, with the animals following the same route of movement through these states for a long time now. The counting was done by forest department officials of all four states, along with a number of non-government organisations associated with wildlife conservation, who had volunteered for the task. With the completion of the counting process, the officials of the four states will be analysing the data, which will finally bring out the nearly exact number of elephants present in these states. “The last time we had an elephant census was back in 2002.During the past five years, there has been quite some change in the behavioural pattern of the elephants. In the last census, we had calculated the presence of around 700 elephants across Jharkhand, Orissa, Chattisgarh and West Bengal.

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