Elephant numbers down 25% in 8 yrs: 1st DNA census | Dehradun News

DEHRADUN: India’s first nationwide DNA-based census has found the country’s wild elephant population fell by about 25% in eight years, underscoring growing threats from shrinking forests and rising conflict with humans.Released on Tuesday, the report, ‘Status of Elephants in India: DNA-based Synchronous All-India Population Estimation of Elephants’ (SAIEE 2021-25), estimated 22,446 elephants across India, down from 29,964 in 2017.The exercise, led by Wildlife Institute of India, marks a shift from older counting techniques to a more scientifically robust DNA markrecapture method. Project Elephant, launched in 1992 to protect the animals and their corridors, had earlier gone by visual or dung-based counts.However, experts have long warned that these older methods lacked rigour in large and fragmented landscapes. The new DNA approach, modelled on the methodology used for tiger estimation, allows a far more accurate count by identifying individuals through their genetic signatures.WII scientist Qamar Qureshi, the report’s lead author, said the study was the world’s first such comprehensive DNA-based enumeration of elephants. “It is a mammoth scientific exercise, and praiseworthy that our nation took this step so that the future course of conservation can align with science,” he said. But he cautioned that “loss of forests, fragmentation of habitat and loss of corridor connectivity” are accelerating conflict, particularly in central India and Assam. “The silver lining is that poaching has gone down — the real concern is habitat loss.”WII director GS Bhardwaj said the figures should be treated as a new scientific baseline rather than compared directly with older numbers. “Given the methodological changes, the 2021-25 data are not comparable to past figures and must form the foundation for future monitoring,” he said.State-wise, Karnataka continues to host the highest number of elephants at 6,013, followed by Assam (4,159), Tamil Nadu (3,136), Kerala (2,785), Uttarakhand (1,792) and Odisha (912). Regionally, the Western Ghats remains the largest elephant stronghold with 11,934 animals — a decline from 14,587 in 2017. The northeastern hills and Brahmaputra floodplains support 6,559 elephants (down from 10,139), while the central Indian highlands and eastern ghats together hold 1,891 (down from 3,128).The report observed that the Western Ghats, once home to a contiguous elephant population, are becoming increasingly fragmented by coffee and tea plantations, invasive species, farmland fencing and rapid infrastructure growth. In Assam, the clearing of forests in Sonitpur and Golaghat districts has worsened human-elephant conflict, already among the country’s highest.In central India, which includes Jharkhand, Odisha, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Maharashtra, West Bengal (northern) and Andhra Pradesh, fragmented habitats outside protected areas have been degraded by mining, shifting cultivation and linear infrastructure such as highways and railways. The region, though home to less than 10% of India’s elephants, accounted for nearly 45% of all human deaths caused by elephants. In the Shivalik and Gangetic plains — Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh and Bihar — the number stood at 2,062, nearly unchanged from 2,085 in 2017.The DNA-based mark–recapture technique involved collecting elephant dung along systematically laid trails, genotyping samples at 11 microsatellite loci, and mapping each sample to a unique genetic identity. When the same individual was identified from another location, a capture-recapture record was created. Spatially explicit capture-recapture (SECR) models were then used to estimate detectability and total population size by integrating field data with spatial habitat information.The scale of the operation was unprecedented: 188,030 trails and transects were surveyed on foot, covering 6,66,977km; 319,460 dung plots were examined, 21,056 samples collected, and DNA profiles generated for 4,065 individual elephants. Because elephants lack distinctive physical markings like tiger stripes, the use of DNA allowed scientists to identify individuals and estimate density more accurately than ever before. One WII scientist at the report’s release said the findings should serve as a “wake-up call” for landscape protection in Odisha, Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh.