Tuskers’ fight cause of elephant death, hunt on for ‘killer’

BIJNOR: A day after a decomposed carcass of an seven-year-old male elephant was discovered from Rajgarh elephant reserve in Bijnor's Najibabad forest division, its post-mortem conducted by experts from Wildlife Institute of India, Lucknow and Indian Veterinary Research Institute, Bareilly revealed that it sustained wounds in a fight with another tusker and bled profusely.

A hunt is now on to find the other tusker to prevent similar incidents. Rajgarh is connected with both Rajaji and Corbett National Parks in neighbouring Uttarakhand.

Najibabad’s divisional forest officer Udayveer Singh said, “The young elephant was attacked by a mature elephant having sharp tusks while the dead elephant’s tusks were small and blunt.”

According to official sources, post-mortem report said the dead elephant’s bone above its tail was found fractured and there were injury marks caused by another elephant’s tusks on its body.


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4 elephants killed by speeding train in India

A HERD of four elephants including an infant has been mown down by a speeding train in eastern India, in the worst incident of its kind since 2012.

A freight train travelling through a forest known to be an elephant corridor in the state of Odisha slammed into the elephants in the early hours of Monday morning. In the past decade, at least 22 elephants have been killed on train tracks in the state, reported the Hindustan Times.

 The latest incident occurred some 20km away from the Sambalpur elephant reserve, with forest officials believing the animals had come from the park.

“Although there was no elephant movement in the area for the past three to four months, the railway authorities were duly informed to reduce train speed in that section,” said a representative of the local forest authorities, Sushant Kumar as quoted by The Hindu.

“Besides, they were also requested to follow guidelines including making continuous hooting along the stretch,” he said.

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Elephants damage paddy crop in Odisha villages

A herd of seven elephants has damaged standing paddy crop in a number of villages in Gajapati district of Odisha.

Forest officials have been asked to assess the loss of the affected farmers, Gajapati district collector Sudhansu Mohan Samal said.

The herd strayed into the villages under Goshani block near Paralakhemundi yesterday and it might have migrated from Lakhari elephant reserve via Srikakulam in Andhra Pradesh, Divisional Forest Officer, Berhampur, A K Behera, who is also the in-charge of Paralakhemundi Forest Divicion said.

The jumbos did not cause any loss to life, he said.

"The farmers will be compensated in accordance with government provision," the district collector said.

The DFO said forest personnel were keeping a strict vigil on the movement of the herd, he said. PTI COR SKN MM LNS

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Elephants deployed to clear invasive plant species

Elephants at the Mudumalai Tiger Reserve are being used to clear lantana camara, an invasive species of plant which has taken over vast tracts of the reserve.

Lantana camara, eupatorium and parthenium, have taken over as much as 70 % of MTR. Over the last five years, the Forest Department has been waging a never-ending war with the invasive plants, trying to clear small sections of the weeds from the reserve forest and encouraging the growth of native flora to replace them.

“For a start, we are clearing the plants up to 30 m on roadsides, particularly where where tourism is permitted,” said Srinivas R Reddy, Field Director of the reserve.

Last year, elephants were used to clear up to 88 km of pathway within the reserve. As rain has set in early this year, and the moisture content makes it far easier for elephants to pull out the plants from the soil, it is hoped that the 62 km of pathways will be cleared in the coming weeks.

Apart from the obvious benefits the work to remove the plants has on the forests of Mudumalai, there are benefits for the elephants too, said Mr. Reddy. “One benefit is that they are away from the camp, thereby reducing the build up of pathogens, the elephants get a lot of exercise and because the mahout and the animal have to work together using commands, the training imparted to the elephants is reinforced,” he added.

Nine elephants are involved in the operation to clear lantana in the reserve. By clearing invasive plant species and creating fire-lines as well as patrol-lines for easier forest management, the Forest Department is also helping to encourage the growth of native plant and species of grass, on which herbivores in the reserve depend upon.

Apart from the use of elephants, manpower is also being used by the department to remove the invasive plant species. The process is both expensive and time consuming, with costs for clearing one hectare ranging from ₹ 15,000 to ₹ 40,000, depending on how thick the plants, especially lantana, have grown in clumps together.

“Though it would be ideal to not have any exotic plant species in the reserve, the removal has to be done gradually in phases. The animals have also adapted to the changes to a certain extent, and we need to study how the gradual removal of these plants has an impact on the wildlife here,” added Mr. Reddy.

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Elephant dung shows stress levels

Asian elephant stress levels peak during dry seasons, when resources are low. This is what studying leftover hormones in elephant poop unravels. The method could be an important non-invasive tool to study the health of wild pachyderm populations in India, finds a new study. In the future, it could also help test the efficacy of management interventions introduced to conserve the endangered species.

With shrinking habitats, India’s endangered elephants face food shortages and increased disturbances in their environments. The resulting physiological stress (a result of secretion of stress hormones such as glucocorticoids) can be beneficial for elephants, helping them escape from threats. However, if prolonged, the stress can affect their health, reproduction and even survival. Stress levels are often high in emaciated pachyderms: so can hormones – traces of which come through in elephant dung – be an indicator of elephant health?

Scientists at the Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru, examined changes in visual body condition scores of 261 elephants in the Mysuru and Nilgiri elephant reserves in south India during wet and dry seasons, scoring their ‘body condition’ on a scale of one (for very thin pachyderms) to five based on the visibility of bones. They also analysed faecal glucocorticoid metabolite (fGCM) levels in the fresh dung of the elephants they observed, to see if stress hormones were a good indicator of body condition across seasons. To study annual patterns, they repeated this for nine female elephants across seven years.

The findings, published in Conservation Physiology, show that the body condition of elephants deteriorated during dry seasons, and has a strong relationship with fGCM levels (especially in females). As body condition deteriorated, stress hormone levels spiked.

“Many conservation studies focuses on how animals behave when they are disturbed, how their population declines or changes. But they forget to address how such changes affect the internal health of an animal. Measuring fGCM will tell us how elephants are affected by either intrinsic or extrinsic factors. Our study is the first to examine this in free-ranging Asian elephants,” says doctoral researcher Sanjeeta Sharma Pokharel, lead author of the study.

“The sudden change in the profile of fGCM after any management intervention would definitely indicate the strong association between stress response and management practices,” she says.

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Census reveals presence of 1976 wild elephants in Odisha: Routray

A latest elephant census report has revealed the presence of 1976 wild elephants in Odisha, State Forest and Environment Minister Bijayshree Routray said here today. Mr Routray told newspersons here that the number of elephants has increased by 22 in comparison to census conducted in 2015 last.He said the number of wild elephants in 2017 included 344 male, 1092 female and 502 young elephants .The sex of 38 elephants,however, could not be identified. He said out of the total 43 divisions covered in the census, 37 divisions recorded elephants during the census period. Mr

Routray said 1949 census units were formed and 5847 persons were engaged in the census work. In addition to the regular staff wildlife enthusiasts, NGOs, Research Scholars, Academicians also participated in the elephant census conducted from May 9 to 12 last. The Minister said 1536 elephants comprising of 77.73 per cent of the total 1976 elephants were found in three elephant reserves Mayurbhanj (635), Mahanadi ( 694) and Sambalpur ( 207) which have altogether seven sanctuaries. Five other sanctuaries have 79 elephants which constitutes 3.99 per cent of the total elephant populations.

During the census 27 elephants were found in Parlakhemundi division including Lakhari sanctuary, 30 in Baliguda Division including Kotagarh sanctuary, two in Kalahandi South Division including Karlapat sanctuary, one Chandka Wildlife Division including Chandka sanctuary and 19 in Hirakud Wildlife Division including Debrigarh sanctuary. As many as 361 elephants comprising of 18.26 per cent were found outside the elephant reserves and outside the sanctuaries, the Minister said adding that highest number of 330 elephants were found in Similipal core area followed by 169 in Dhenkanal.

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Elephant corridor in Hassan gets a push

BENGALURU: The state government has decided to restore an elephant corridor cutting through Sakaleshpur and Alur taluks in Hassan district, in a project expected to cost more than Rs 230 crore. The corridor, which has become fragmented over the years, has emerged as a human-elephant conflict zone.

The project, known as Elephant Reserve or Park, has been in the pipeline for long.TOI has learned that forest minister B Ramanath Rai has now directed department officials to explore funding options for the project as it involves land acquisition in a few villages in the two taluks. A team from the Union forests ministry is expected to visit the proposed corridor area soon.

“The forest department is set to develop an elephant corridor spread over 22,000 hectares, including parcels of government land and private land close to a village called Hettur in Sakaleshpur taluk,” said Anur Reddy P, chief conservator of forests (wildlife).

Elephants in this part of the state, he said, were struggling to find forest space due to fragmentation of their habitat and therefore, frequently ended up in conflict situations with people.

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Ten elephant corridors in Odisha viable for restoration

Ten of the 14 proposed elephant corridors identified to facilitate unhindered movement of jumbos and prevent their inbreeding have been found viable for restoration in Odisha.

Raman Sukumar, noted elephant expert and professor at the Centre for Ecological Sciences at Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru, said not all the 14 elephant corridors identified by the State government can be restored for a variety of reasons.

Prof. Sukumar has been roped in by the State government to prepare a management plan for elephant reserves, assess carrying capacity of forests with respect to elephant population and firm up an action plan for the future.

‘Need to be realistic’


“We are assessing which are the viable corridors that can be protected and strengthened for elephant movement. There is no point in drawing a line on a map identifying corridors. We need to be realistic,” he said speaking to reporters here recently.

“I am not in favour of large-scale land acquisition. Land is a very sensitive issue. We have to identify very strategic area that holds the corridor almost like a crutch. We will require small land parcel to stitch the corridors,” he said.

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