BENGALURU: With the entire country celebrating Gaja Utsav which was flagged off by President Droupadi Murmu in Assam on the completion of 30 years of Project Elephant, Karnataka, home to over 6,000 elephants, has taken the lead in announcing an elephant census from the third week of May for all southern states. State forest department officials told TNIE that the decision was taken after a detailed discussion with the forest heads of other southern states on Thursday.
This comes at a time when Karnataka is set to be declared the tiger state, when the tiger census is released on April 9. The elephant census will be done every five years. However, it was not done in 2022. The southern states and Maharashtra decided to undertake a census. Primary estimates show that Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Kerala house over 12,000 elephants.
Principal Chief Conservator of Forests, wildlife, Rajiv Ranjan said that the census, which will be conducted with the help of IISc, is set to be completed before monsoon. Officials and experts said that although Karnataka’s elephant population is high, central government is offering little help in resolving man-elephant conflict and conservation.
“In fact, the situation is so bad that the Centre is working to merge Project Elephant and Tiger. This is also being done taking a cue from Karnataka, where the tiger and elephant reserves overlap. Karnataka’s management is better compared to other states,” an MoEFCC official said.
Karnataka was among one of the first states where elephant reserves were launched- Mysuru Elephant Reserve in 1992, covering Bannerghatta National Park, Cauvery Wildlife Sanctuary, MM Hills, Bandipur and Nagarhole Tiger Reserves, Pushpagiri wildlife sanctuary, Talacauvery, and the latest was Bhadra Tiger Reserve.
Dandeli elephant reserve was announced eight years later.
“Compared to the large area, funds from the central government is poor. The Centre allocates around Rs 7-8 crore under Project Elephant but releases around Rs 5-6 crore. The state government has announced Rs 200 crore for elephant management. Of 11,000 hectares of forest land in Karnataka, 60 per cent is occupied by elephants. Now non-forest areas will be assessed in the upcoming census,” the official said. Elephant expert, R Sukumar said investment needs to be increased as the captive-to-wild elephant ratio is 1:10 in India.
PREZ RELEASES MANUAL FOR MAN-ELEPHANT CONFLICT
At Gaja Utsav in Kaziranga, President Droupadi Murmu released the field manual for managing human-elephant conflict, management of elephant reserves in India, and for necropsy and carcass disposal of Asian elephants. Officials from the Wildlife Institute of India (WII) told TNIE that the highlight was the manual for postmortem as it will help know the exact cause of death and how the carcass should be disposed. It is promoted that the carcass be kept for vultures to feed while the tusks be burnt immediately to ensure there is no poaching. However, a close watch be kept on the carcass.