M Sc Dissertation(WII)

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Abundance and social organization of male Asian elephants (Elephas maximus) in Rajaji Tiger Reserve
(Wildlife Institute of India, Dehradun, 2024) Madhusudanan, Abhimanyu; Pandav, Bivash; Lakshminarayan, N.; Mondol, Samrat
1. Asian Elephants are complex, social, and polygynous mammals living in fission-fusion societies. Male elephants are known to alternate between leading solitary lives, in all-male groups or associating with mixed-sex herds. All-male groups allow younger males to learn from older males, test strengths and spar with their peers. While much work has been done on female Asian elephant societies, studies focused on male association patterns are limited, but gaining importance in the light of human-elephant conflicts. In this study, I estimated the abundance of adult male elephants in a stretch of forest spanning over 40 km along the east bank of the river Ganga in Uttarakhand using a polygon search-based spatially explicit capture recapture (SECR) framework 2. I invested a survey effort of ~3014 km to estimate the abundance of the adult male segment of the population using a capture-recapture framework. Using a combination of morphological features, I identified 34 adult males from 124 elephant sightings. Association patterns of the male elephants, following behavioural sampling approaches were also recorded during the surveys. 3. Adult male elephant density was 0.05 (SE=0.01)/km2, and a derived abundance of 40 (SE=1.4) for the 475 km2 study area. This demonstrates that polygon search-based SECR is an effective approach in estimating elephant abundance.
Assessing the Efficacy of Select Physical Barriers in Mitigating Human-Elephant Conflict in the Human-Elephant Shared Landscape of Golaghat District, Assam
(Wildlife Institute of India, Dehradun, 2021) Das, Gitima; Gopi, G.V.
Human-Elephant Conflict (hereafter “HEC”) is one of the most challenging issues both for elephant conservation and people’s wellbeing in the elephant landscapes. Management of which becomes extremely difficult without the implementation of appropriate mitigation measures. Physical barriers, like solar fences, elephant-proof trenches, stone, or rubble walls are installed as mitigation measures in all elephant-occupied habitats at the edge of the forest and human-use areas, globally. However, installations of the same without a proper scientific rationale and assessing and analysing their site-specific efficacy in reducing elephant incursion in the human settlement areas often fail in doing its intended objectives. It is important to note that humans are also a crucial component of conflict, hence research focusing on social aspects are essential for finding solutions. Keeping such concepts in mind, an assessment to determine the efficiency of two types of physical barriers, viz., solar fence and elephant-proof trench (EPT) was carried out in one of the prime elephant habitats of north-eastern India, in Golaghat district of Assam. Located on the southern bank of the Brahmaputra and home to Kaziranga National Park (KNP) on the west and Nambor-Doigurung Wildlife Sanctuary (NDWLS) in the south, Golaghat offers an ideal site for such study. It is realized that even after the presence of barriers in various areas of the district, conflict cases in the form of crop-raiding, human mortalities and human deaths continue to be reported. Handful studies on barriers and their effectiveness were done recently on the northern bank of Brahmaputra. However, no such appraisal on efficiency of barriers has been done in this landscape, where conflict levels are high. Hence, this study attempted to fill these existing research gaps.
Assessment of Human-Elephant Conflicts in Jalpaiguri District of West Bengal in Relation to Land-Use Patterns
(Wildlife Institute of India, Dehradun, 2003) Roy, Anirban Datta; Goyal, S.P.; Sathyakumar, S.
This study on Human Elephant Conflict was conducted in Jalpaiguri district .of north West Bengal to identify the level of conflicts in different areas of the district, and to recognize it in connection with land-use patterns existing in the district. The study was conducted over five months and information on conflicts was collected from Tea Gardens and Wildlife Squads. Interviews and questionnaires were also used to survey the conflict affected viilages. The different conflict areas and the intensity of the conflicts in those areas were identified with the help of gridded maps. Results showed that although most of the conflict areas had remained the same from previous studies, some new conflict areas were also emerging. Seasonality of the conflicts was also found to be related to cropping patterns adopted. Information collected from the Tea gardens showed that the Tea gardens which had previously been categorized as high conflict areas had remained same to a great extent. The Tea gardens having the highest conflict incidences were frequented more by solitary animals rather than herds. The mean group size of the herds were found to show two distinct peaks in the months of May-June and September-November. Interviews with affected villagers provided a true picture of the difficulties faced by them during crop-raiding. In the absence of Wildlife Squads, villagers had to drive the elephants away with their own methods.

M Sc Dissertation(WII)

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