Declining Number of Elephants

All is not well with India's elephants. A population estimation exercise by the Wildlife Institute of India has suggested a disturbing decline in their number: the 2025 count is 22,446, 17% lower than in 2017, when the count was 27,312. Incidentally, the Centre informed the Lok Sabha in 2024 that India's pachyderm population, as per a synchronised estimation, was 29,964. These surveys are not comparable because of methodological differences. Experts have also said that the DNA model may have under-estimated the elephant count. These counters are valid, but there is enough and more evidence to be concerned about the health of the Indian elephants.

At least three inferences in the SAIFE report ask for close reading. One, the once-contiguous elephant population in the Western Ghats is rapidly splintering due to changing land use, including expanding commercial plantations, invasive plants, farmland fencing, human encroachment and mushrooming developmental projects, all of which impact elephant survival and migration. Two, habitats in East Central India face fragmentation and deterioration from unmitigated mining and infrastructure projects, habitat degradation and human use. This has prompted long-ranging elephants to venture into human dwellings, escalating human-wildlife conflict.

Three, the North East holds the second-largest elephant population in India but exploitation of natural resources since colonial times, driven by the productive nature of floodplains and geopolitics, has led to habitat loss and rising conflict with humans. The frequent reports of such conflicts and accidents on rail tracks from states such as Kerala, West Bengal and Assam confirm the anxieties recorded by the report. Project Elephant, established in 1992, needs a renewed push.