Elephant

Weeks after the death of 10 elephants in the Bandhavgarh Tiger Reserve (BTR), the Madhya Pradesh government has appointed Subharanjan Sen as the principal chief conservator of forest (wildlife), an official said on Friday. Sen replaces V K N Ambade, who took charge as PCCF (wildlife) just three months ago. Ambade will serve as the managing director of the MP State Forest Development Corporation (MPSFDC), the official said. According to sources in the forest department, the state government was not happy with Ambade after the death of 10 jumbos due to consumption of some toxic substance at BTR in Umaria district in the last week of October. Speaking to PTI, Sen, who was PCCF (budget and finance), said he is expected to take charge of his new assignment on Friday. As per a government order issued on Thursday, Ambade has been shifted to MPSFDC as MD. In the first week of November, Chief Minister Mohan Yadav suspended two senior officials of the BTR for lapses after a high-level probe

SDO Forest Department Kuldeep Tripathi said that three teams of 50 persons from the Forest Department are engaged in the search operation in the neighbouring villages

A high-level team sent by Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Mohan Yadav to the Bandhavgarh Tiger Reserve following the death of 10 elephants did not come across any conspiracy theory, one of its members said on Saturday. The team comprising MP forest junior minister Pradeep Airward, additional chief secretary Ashok Baranwal and head of Forest Force Aseem Shrivastava visited the spot inside the protected forest. According to wildlife expert Ajay Dubey, never before have ten elephants died within a 72-hour period in the country. An official said that the CM rushed Ahirwar and the two top bureaucrats to the reserve and asked them to submit a report on the elephant deaths that have made national headlines. The CM is dissatisfied with the preliminary report of the forest department that the pachyderms died after consuming a lot of kodo millets, an official, who attended the urgent meeting convened by Yadav on Friday night, told PTI. Quoting the CM at the meeting, the official said Yadav st

Government has decided to send a state minister and top forest officials to Umaria to probe the elephant deaths

The deaths may be linked to the elephants' consumption of Kodo millet, however, a post-mortem examination will confirm the exact cause

Around 2,000 "illegal settlers" belonging to 450 families were evicted on Tuesday from 55-60 hectares of forest land in Goalpara district of Assam, an official said. Several government installations were also removed from that area during the eviction drive which will help prevent man-elephant conflict, he said. The exercise was carried out at Bandarmatha Reserve Forest, spread across 118 hectares, in Lakhipur Range in presence of a heavy posse of security personnel and civil and forest officials. "The eviction drive is being carried out as per a Gauhati High Court order directing that all reserve forest areas in Goalpara be cleared of encroachments. Man-elephant conflict is the highest in Goalpara in the entire country," Goalpara Divisional Forest Officer Tejas Mariswamy said. After clearing the area, an afforestation drive will be carried out and make it suitable for elephant habitation, he added. "We are clearing 55-60 hectares. Around 450 families consisting of about 2,000 peo

Zimbabwe and Namibia have announced plans to slaughter hundreds of wild elephants and other animals to feed hunger-stricken residents amid severe drought conditions in the southern African countries. Zimbabwe said Monday it would allow the killing of 200 elephants so that their meat can be distributed among needy communities, while in Namibia the killing of more than 700 wild animals including 83 elephants is under way as part of a plan announced three weeks ago. Tinashe Farawo, a spokesman for the Zimbabwe National Parks and Wildlife Management Authority, said permits would be issued in needy communities to hunt elephants and that the agency also would kill some of the overall allotment of 200 animals. We will start culling as soon as we have finished issuing out permits, Farawo said. The elephants will be taken from an area where the population has become unsustainable, Farawo said. The hunting will take place in areas such as Hwange National Park in the country's arid west whe

After elephants, now monkeys have been found to make specific sounds to name each other, according to a new study. Researchers found that marmoset monkeys, native to South America, use specific vocal calls, called "phee-calls", to identify and communicate with each other. A study published in the journal Nature Ecology and Evolution in June showed that wild African elephants addressed each other with name-like calls, uniquely invented for each individual. Calls meant for other elephants did get responded to. In this study, published in the journal Science, the researchers from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel, recorded natural conversations between pairs of marmosets, as well as interactions between monkeys and a computer system. The team found that these monkeys used their "phee-calls" to address specific individuals. "They (the monkeys) also perceived and responded correctly to calls that were specifically directed at them," the authors wrote. They said that naming of

More than 6,900 poachers were arrested for killing and trafficking of 2,869 wildlife animals during the past 10 years, Forest, Environment and Climate Change Minister Ganesh Ram Singkhuntia told the Odisha Assembly on Tuesday. While replying to a question from Congress legislator Taraprasad Bahinipati, the minister said the law enforcement authorities have arrested 6,960 poachers during the last 10 years and seized different body parts of wild animals including skins, nails and horns of tigers, beer, deer, sambar and other wild lives, elephant tusks, and pangolins from them. While the seized elephant tusks have been stored at the state government's treasury, the other seized items have been preserved at the forest range offices, he said. The government has formed a joint task force comprising officials of forest and police departments to examine the wild animal poaching cases and take necessary steps, he stated. In another written statement to the House, the Forest minister said th

India will have to wait until June next year for the results of the latest elephant census, as the population estimation has been delayed in some northeastern states, sources said. Wild elephants are found in forested, hilly tracts across four regions of India: the foothills of the Himalayas in the north, the northeastern states, east-central India, and the Western and Eastern Ghats in the southern parts of the country. A source told PTI that data collection and analysis from the northeast have not yet been completed. The primary reasons for the delay in the region are "heavy monsoon rains, floods and the limited capacity" of the forest staff, the sources added. The entire process involves creating shapefiles, capacity building, data collection, and data processing. As a result, the numbers from the latest elephant estimation exercise will only be available by June next year, they said. SM Sahai, the Chief Wildlife Warden of Meghalaya, told PTI that the elephant population estima

Union minister Bhupender Yadav has said if elephants are saved, the forests will prosper as the tuskers serve to protect them and called for steps to reduce human-elephant conflicts in the country. Elephants have been an integral part of religious and cultural traditions in India, Yadav said on Monday. Addressing an event organised in Raipur on the occasion of World Elephant Day, the Minister for Environment, Forest and Climate Change highlighted the efforts being made by the government for pachyderm conservation through a range of participatory efforts. "In India, elephants have been a part of religious and cultural traditions. If we save elephants, the forests will prosper as elephants are actual rangers of forests and serve to protect them," he stated. Yadav stressed on the need to reduce human-elephant conflicts, a problem also prevalent in parts of Chhattisgarh, in the country. There are 33 elephant reserves and 150 corridors for the pachyderms in the country, he said. The .

The world observes World Elephant Day every year on August 12 to raise awareness about the plight of elephants and their conservation

India lost 528 elephants in the last five years due to unnatural causes, including poaching, poisoning, electrocution, and train accidents, the government informed Parliament on Monday. In response to a question by BJP MPs Jayanta Kumar Roy and Sangeeta Kumari Singh Deo, Union Minister of State for Environment Kirti Vardhan Singh told the Lok Sabha that 392 elephants died from electrocution and 73 were killed in train accidents during this period. Fifty elephants were killed by poachers and 13 succumbed to poisoning, he said. According to the government data tabled in the Lok Sabha, 71 elephants died due to electrocution in Odisha, 55 in Assam, 52 in Karnataka, 49 in Tamil Nadu, 32 in Chhattisgarh, 30 in Jharkhand, and 29 in Kerala. Assam and Odisha recorded 22 and 16 elephant deaths in train accidents. Poachers killed 17 pachyderms in Odisha, 14 in Meghalaya, and 10 in Tamil Nadu. Ten elephants were poisoned in Assam, two in Chhattisgarh, and one in West Bengal. According to the

Human-elephant conflicts resulted in 2,853 human deaths during the past five years, with the number of fatalities reaching a five-year high of 628 in 2023, according to government data. Responding to a question in the Rajya Sabha, Union Minister of State for Environment Kirti Vardhan Singh on Thursday said "elephants caused" 587 human deaths in 2019, 471 in 2020, 557 in 2021, 610 in 2022 and 628 in 2023. The data revealed that Odisha recorded 624 such deaths during this period, followed by Jharkhand with 474, West Bengal with 436, Assam with 383, Chhattisgarh with 303, Tamil Nadu with 256, Karnataka with 160 and Kerala with 124. The minister said the management of wildlife habitats was primarily the responsibility of state governments and Union Territory administrations and that the central government provided financial and technical support under the centrally sponsored Project Tiger & Elephant scheme for the protection of animals, their habitats and corridors, addressing ...

Congress leader Jairam Ramesh on Tuesday wrote to Union Environment Minister Bhupender Yadav, expressing concern that the Captive Elephant (Transport or Transfer) Rules 2024 notified in March do not effectively prevent the wild capture and commercial trade of elephants. In his letter, Ramesh said the Wildlife Protection (Amendment) Bill, 2022, allowed the non-commercial transfer of elephants for "any other purpose" but failed to clarify what this phrase means, leaving room for misuse. "This is no way to treat India's national heritage animal, declared thus in 2010," Ramesh wrote on X and urged Yadav to reconsider the Rules in light of these concerns and those raised by various animal welfare organisations. Ramesh reminded Yadav that during his speech on the Wildlife Protection (Amendment) Bill, 2022, he had objected to the non-commercial transfer of elephants "for any other purpose". He said this was contrary to the recommendation of the Standing Committee that examined the Bill in

Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan has convened an urgent meeting on March 14 to discuss the issue of increasing occurrences of human-animal conflict in the state, Forest Minister AK Saseendran said on Wednesday. Saseendran said that wild animals, including elephants, cannot be stopped from coming out of the forests by only implementing the preventive measures being followed currently. "We also need to take steps to keep the animals inside the forests in tune with the changes in human settlements," he told reporters. The minister said that in the meeting to be held tomorrow, besides strengthening the preventive measures, he also expects that directions would be issued to explore ideas to ensure that wild animals stay inside forests. His statement came in response to reporters' queries about unconfirmed reports of elephants entering inhabited areas in Munnar area of Idukki district today morning. When asked about an elephant found in a weak condition in Athirappilly area of ...

Wayanad has witnessed several incidents of wild elephant attacks, including the recent death of a forest department watcher

Days after Wayanad in Kerala witnessed violent protests over the death of three people in wild animal attacks, Union Minister for Environment and Forest Bhupendra Yadav on Wednesday said the situation is very grave there so he has called senior scientists from Wildlife Institute of India and will also be meeting the victims. A district-wide hartal call was given by all three major political fronts in Wayanad to protest against the increasing number of wild animal attacks in the region with the latest being on Friday where an eco-tourism guide of the Forest department was killed by a wild tusker near Kuruva island. "There is a conflict situation and I am going to Wayanad. We feel that the situation is very grave. So, I called senior scientists from WII (Wildlife Institute of India), state and Central officials. My officers have apprised me of the situation. I will go and meet the victims as well and we will take appropriate call," he told reporters at the Kempegowda International ...

India's first woman elephant mahout Parbati Baruah famous as "Hasti Kanya", tribal environmentalist Chami Murmu, social worker Sangthankima who runs Mizoram's largest orphanage and plastic surgeon Prema Dhanraj who treats burn victims are among 34 "unsung heroes" awarded Padma Shri on Thursday. The list, issued on the eve of 75th Republic Day, also has organic farmer from South Andaman K Chellammal, international Mallakhamb coach Uday Vishwanath Deshpande, renowned microbiologist who pioneered development of India's inaugural Sickle Cell Anemia Control Program Yazdi Maneksha Italia, Longpi potter Machihan Sasa from Ukhrul who dedicated five decades to preserve this ancient Manipuri traditional pottery that traces its roots back to the Neolithic period (10,000 BC). The coveted civilian honour also went to Gaddam Sammaiah theatre artiste Chindu Yakshaganam (from Jangaon) performing this art form for over five decades in over 19,000 shows, Bhilwara's Behrupiya artiste Jankilal, third ..

In a legal notice issued by Bomman and Bellie, the mahout couple made famous by the Oscar-winning documentary The Elephant Whisperers', is seeking a goodwill gesture' of Rs 2 crore from filmmaker Kartiki Gonsalves. In the legal notice, a copy of which is PTI has obtained, it is stated that the couple were promised a proper house and an all-terrain multi-purpose vehicle and sufficient financial support as a one-time lump sum payment (without mentioning the amount) as compensation for their time, based on the income generated from the project. The legal notice also said that on the one hand, the couple were introduced as the real heroes" to the elite, celebrities, sports persons and political leaders, gaining wide publicity for them. But on the other hand, the filmmaker got all the financial benefits from Tamil Nadu Chief Minister and the Prime Minister of India, the notice stated. When PTI reached out to Bomman, he said he was advised not to talk about the case anymore and asked us t