‘Elephant Reserves’ established under the ‘Project Elephant’ program, serve as the management unit for elephant landscapes in India. We examined the spatial overlap between Elephant Reserves and other conservation areas. We found that 33% of the area of Elephant Reserves overlapped with Protected Areas and Tiger Reserves, enhancing their conservation status. Land use changes from 1985 to 2015 in Elephant Reserve areas were analysed using pre-classified remote sensing data. Results revealed that 4.9% of forest cover in Elephant Reserves were transformed to other land-uses and that currently 72% of the area of Elephant Reserves was under forest cover, indicating that forest loss was minimal.
Intestinal impaction is a common and clinically significant condition in captive Asian elephants, often triggered by fibrous plant ingestion, dehydration and reduced mobility. This case study reports a 3-year-old female elephant in Dudhwa Tiger Reserve presenting with anorexia, abdominal distension, and absence of defecation. Clinical evaluation confirmed gastrointestinal obstruction. Management included fluid therapy, anti-inflammatory edication, rectal enema, and manual disimpaction. Faecal analysis revealed undigested Saccharum bengalense grass. The case underscores the importance of timely intervention, experienced mahouts, field-adapted clinical protocols, and supervised foraging to reduce gastrointestinal health risks in semi-captive elephants.
We report the first record of a white elephant in the wild from Bangladesh. The white elephant is estimated to be approximately one month old and is part of a herd consisting of nine individuals. This elephant herd inhabits the fragmented, human-dominated forest landscapes of the south-eastern Chittagong Hill Tracts, a region increasingly impacted by habitat loss and human-elephant conflict. Our finding represents a significant addition to the records of white elephants in the wild and may have broader implications for understanding rare pigmentation traits and their occurrence in wild populations.
Due to the limited public access to information on captive Asian elephants in China, there is a general lack of understanding regarding the status of this population. To address this gap, a national census was initiated through an ongoing field investigation beginning in 2022 and continuing through 2030. This paper presents a summary of all information compiled to date, including profile data for 148 elephants and the 35 families or kinship groups. It also examines major welfare concerns, insufficient living space, and unregulated tourist feeding, as well as the inefficiency of current breeding programs.
I examined the training methods of captive elephants at Sakrebyle and Dubare Elephant Camps in Karnataka and describe the basic training of captive-born elephants, wild-captured elephants, and training of elephants for tourism. Captive-born elephants adapted faster than wild-captured elephants to training and to cooperate with mahouts. This is likely due to the early training they received, where both mothers and calves formed close associations with single mahouts and were fed by them, making the training process faster and easier.
