List of Elephant Reserves in India, Map, Complete Updated List

Elephant Reserves in India

In 1992, the Government of India established Project Elephant as a Centrally Sponsored Scheme with the goals of safeguarding elephants, their habitat, and migration routes, resolving issues related to man-animal conflict, and ensuring the well-being of elephants held in captivity.

Read about: Wildlife Sanctuaries of India

Elephant Reserves in India Map

In 1992, the Indian government started Project Elephant with the goal of preserving elephants and their natural habitat. In India, there are 33 elephant reserves. Every year on August 12th, World Elephant Day is observed to raise awareness about the need to protect and conserve the largest land animal. In order to raise awareness of the critical predicament of Asian and African elephants, the day was established in 2012. As “Keystone Species,” they are important to the ecosystem of the forest.

Asian elephants: The Indian, Sumatran, and Sri Lankan subspecies are the three types of Asian elephants. The Indian subspecies have the largest range and make up the majority of the remaining elephants on the continent. Global Population: Estimated 20,000–40,000. There are over 28,000 elephants in India, with about 25% of them living in Karnataka.

List of Elephant Reserves in India

Here’ complete updated List of Elephant Reserves in India 2023:

Elephants

Elephants are keystone species. Due to illegal poaching for the high demand for ivory, tusks, and other body parts, Asian and African elephants are on the verge of extinction. At the moment, there are about 28,000 elephants in India, with about 25% of them living in Karnataka.

There are three different species of elephants: Asian elephants, African forest elephants, and African bush elephants. Indian, Sumatran, and Sri Lankan elephants are the three subspecies that make up the Asian elephant. The largest range and the majority of the remaining elephants on the continent belong to the Indian subspecies. The greatest population of wild Asian elephants is found in India, where there are an estimated 27,312 elephants, or nearly 55% of the species’ global population, as of the 2017 census. They can be found in India’s 32 elephant reserves, which are dispersed among ten elephant landscapes and 65,270 square kilometres of forested areas in northeast, central, northwest, and south India.

However, unless the elephant reserve is located inside an already protected Reserve Forest or the Protected Area network, these reserve areas are not just for elephants. Elephant reserves in India are not legally protected ecosystems alone itself. The majority of an Indian elephant’s day is spent feeding, and they are excellent rovers. Along their way, they also leave behind a lot of excrement, which aids in the dispersal of germination seeds.

Indian elephants consume a lot of tree bark, roots, leaves, and small branches in addition to grasses and other plants. Indian elephants prefer to eat crops like rice, sugarcane, and bananas that have been grown. They travel a path that is always nearer to a freshwater source since they must drink at least once every day.

Read about: Tiger Reserves in India

Elephant Reserves in India Conservation Status

Project Elephant

Launched in February 1992, Project Elephant is an initiative supported by the Central Government.

The government offers assistance to the states that have a population of wild elephants living in the wild under the Project Elephant plan for the conservation and management of elephants.

In order for the natural population of elephants to survive, it ensures the conservation of elephant corridors and habitats. For the survival of the elephant population in the wild, the project strives to safeguard elephant routes and habitats. Of the 28 states or union territories, 16 of them—Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Andhra Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Kerala, Karnataka, Meghalaya, Maharashtra, Nagaland, Orissa, Tamil Nadu, Uttaranchal, Uttar Pradesh, and West Bengal—primarily follow this elephant conservation plan.

These states receive technical assistance and financial support from the union government to carry out and complete Project Elephant. Along with help for the census, field authorities are also trained to ensure that man-elephant conflict is minimized and prevented.

The initiative has three key goals:

Protection of elephants, their habitats, and elephant corridors in order to preserve the welfare of domesticated elephants. Reduction and prevention of conflict between humans and elephants.

1st Elephant Reserve in India

The Singhbhum Elephant Reserve in Jharkhand was the first elephant reserve. The latest is setting up Terai Elephant Reserve (TER) at Dudhwa-Pilibhit in Uttar Pradesh The new Reserve, spread over 3,049 sq km area, will be India’s 33rd Elephant Reserve – a management entity that includes protected areas, forest areas and corridors for conservation of wild elephants.

Elephant National Heritage Animal

According to the standing committee of the national board for wildlife’s recommendations, the Indian government designated the elephant as the nation’s national heritage animal in 2010. This was done to ensure that elephants received adequate protection before their numbers fell to alarming proportions, similar to what happened to tigers.  It has been proposed to amend the Wildlife Protection Act of 1972 to create a National Elephant Conservation Authority (NECA) along the lines of the NTCA.

MIKE Program for Project Elephant

After the conference of parties adopted a CITES resolution, the Monitoring of Illegal Killing of Elephants (MIKE) programme was launched in South Asia in 2003.  The purpose of MIKE was to provide the information necessary for the countries that make up the elephant range to manage their elephant populations properly and safeguard them in the long run. The MIKE program’s goals are as follows-to monitor the quantities and patterns of unlawful poaching and guarantee that the patterns for protecting elephants change.to ascertain the causes of such changes and to evaluate the effects of the CITES conference on parties’ decisions.

Elephant Task Force

The government established the Elephant Task Force in the same manner as the Tiger Task Force in response to the rising tension brought on by the widespread practise of killing elephants as payback and the conflict between humans and elephants. The Elephant Task Force’s main objective was to present workable options for the long-term preservation of elephants. 25,000 to 29, 000 elephants live in the wild in India. However, there are only about 1200 tuskers (male) elephants alive in India, making them just as endangered as tigers. The destruction of their habitat, conflicts between humans and elephants, and ivory poaching are all threats to Asian elephants. In India, where there are about 50% of all Asian elephants in the world, this issue is especially severe. Many conservationists perceive Project Elephant as a success since it was able to maintain a constant and sustainable level of the elephant population in India.

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