The asian elephant is the largest terrestrial mammal in tropical asia and a flagship species for regional conservation efforts across india and south asia

The U.S. Department of the Interior's Fish and Wildlife Service awarded a $249,718 Project Grant under the Asian Elephant Conservation Fund (CFDA 15.621) to the Centre for Wildlife Studies, Inc. The five-year grant, running from October 1, 2024 to September 30, 2029, will support a research and conservation program to assess the distribution, habitat use, and patterns of human-elephant conflict across the Northern Eastern Ghats landscape of India. Key activities include occupancy surveys, camera trap surveys, and community interviews to gather data on elephant populations and human-elephant interactions in this understudied region. The project aims to provide critical information to help mitigate threats and conflicts, supporting the long-term conservation of the Asian elephant, a flagship endangered species in the region.

Historically, asian elephants were distributed over an area exceeding 9 million KM2 across asia, but their range has since reduced by over 95%. This loss of elephant range is even more pronounced in india, which holds the largest population of the species with an estimated 30,000 wild elephants. Deforestation and loss of habitat, hunting and wildlife trade for ivory, conflict with people, is severely threatening their populations across india. While a significant amount of research has been done on elephant populations across the western ghats, northeast india and the himalayas, there are other smaller and scattered populations of elephants spread across india where little research or conservation efforts have taken place. One of the most important of these is indias eastern ghats mountain landscape, running parallel to indias east coast for a distance of 1600 KM north to south covering 75,000 KM2 and containing 12 protected areas. IT is also the least protected forest landscape in india, with only 6.3% of total forest area under protected area coverage. Currently, the forests of the eastern ghats are experiencing rapid deforestation due to mining, agricultural expansion, DAM building and infrastructure development. Elephants exist in highly scattered populations across the eastern ghats with unverified estimates placing their population at around 1000 individuals. Their numbers and range are rapidly shrinking due to conflict with people, habitat loss. Over the next five years, we aim to undertake a research and conservation program to assess wild asian elephant occupancy, distribution, habitat use and spatiotemporal conflict patterns for the first time across the eastern ghats landscape, covering an estimated area of 5,000 KM2. This project will yield information on how habitat alteration and landscape change is affecting elephant distribution and leading to human elephant conflict across the highly degraded and fragmented northern eastern ghats landscape. We also aim to evaluate the scale of human elephant conflict in the landscape, and its impacts on both humans and elephant populations. This project will enable a partnership with local communities and key stakeholders including the forest department in the eastern ghats to mitigate human elephant conflict, reduce threats to both wild elephants and humans, and contribute to the conservation of elephants in the long term. Goal: assessing elephant distribution, habitat use and patterns of human elephant conflict in indias neglected northern eastern ghats landscape objectives: 1. Understanding elephant distribution and habitat use in the northern eastern ghats landscape of india 2. Assessing spatiotemporal patterns of human elephant conflict in the northern eastern ghats landscapeactivities:activity 1.1 conducting detailed reconnaissance visits to understand areas within the landscape used by elephants activity 1.2 landscape habitat and topographic analysis using GIS RS and gridding the 5000 KM2 landscape into 28 grids of 180 KM2 each, and each grid into four nested sub-grids.activity 1.3 assess elephant occupancy and distribution through large scale field level occupancy surveys to identify areas used by elephants in the northern eastern ghats landscape activity 1.4 assess elephant habitat use and population structure through camera trap-based field surveys in an area of 5000 KM2 in the northern eastern ghatsactivity 2.1: assessing threats and anthropogenic disturbances in the form of signs of deforestation, built up human infrastructure, presence of mining and other land use changes to elephant habitat in the landscapeactivity 2.2 examining spatiotemporal patterns of human elephant conflict in the northern eastern ghats landscape through an estimated 500 in person questionnaire based semi structured interv