THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The state capital has 48 elephants as per the captive elephant census by the forest department's Biodiversity cell. The census registered 14 elephants in the Trivandrum Social Forestry range, 14 in the Attingal Social Forestry range and 4 in the Neyyatinkara range. The rest eighteen are with the Elephant Rehabilitation Centre at Kottur.
Of the 48 elephants recorded in the city, 28 elephants are male, 17 are female and 3 figured under the classification of makhna (tuskless). The youngest captive elephants were recorded from the Elephant Rehabilitation Centre. The baby elephants are of age nine months, one and a half years and two years.
The one day census in the city was carried out on Thursday by seven teams comprising section forest officers and veterinary doctors.
The census was executed using microchip readers along with a set of other measurement tools. "All the elephants in the city except the baby elephants in Kottur had microchips and readings were taken via the microchip reader. No discrepancies were noted and according to the data collected, all the animals were found to be healthy.
The final documentation is under progress," said J R Ani, ACF, Social Forestry wing, Forest Department. “We encountered elephants which were registered in other districts in the city during the census. Also, a few elephants registered in our city were in other districts. The details regarding these elephants were shared and the respective teams in each district collected the census data. Further, the samples of the dung for those elephants in musth were collected. These samples are being sent to Rajiv Gandhi Centre for Biotechnology," he added.
According to the census data, there are 521 captive elephants in Kerala of which 399 elephants are male, 99 are female and 23 figure under the Makhana classification. Thrissur recorded the highest number of captive elephants. 145 captive elephants were recorded in Thrissur, while 64 were recorded at Kottayam, 61 at Kollam, 3 at Kannur and nil from Kasaragod. The census was undertaken following the order by the Supreme Court. The population estimation is spearheaded by the Social Forestry Divisions with support of territorial, wildlife and flying squad wings.