U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service Asian Elephant Conservation Act Summary Report 1999-2001 The mission of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is working with others to conserve, protect and enhance fish, wildlife, plants and their habitats for the continuing benefit of the American people. Cover: A subadult male Asian elephant in the fertile grasslands of the Brahmaputra River floodplains, Kaziranga National Park, Assam, India. The forested hills in the background are an essential wet season component of this habitat which is part of India’s Kaziranga-Karbelong-Intanki Elephant Reserve, home to 1,500 to 2,000 elephants. Karl Stromayer Asian Elephant Conservation Act Summary Report 1999-2001 A cover drawing from the children’s book “Elephantasy,” a publication under the project titled School Education to support Asian Elephant Conservation. See page 23. © 2001 Centre for Enviroment Education Introduction The Asian elephant (Elephas maximus) is Within the a keystone species, sharing a land mass context of with some of the most densely populated and poorest areas in the world. The conservation pressure brought on by these conditions planning to has resulted in the conversion of forest conserve cover to agriculture and villages, fragmenting elephant habitat and maximum populations. While the Asian elephant is biodiversity and the well-known elephant of circuses and ecosystem elephant rides, the African elephant’s function, the plight in the wild has been more successfully popularized by the western importance of media. Relatively few people are aware that conserving the the Asian elephant is critically endangered Asian elephant in the wild. across as much of Several distinctive anatomical its range as characteristics differentiate the Asian possible elephant from the larger, more abundant cannot be African elephant (Loxodonta africana). For example, the ears of Asian elephants overemphasized. are smaller; the forehead has two distinct There are also lobes, rather than the single dome of the profound African elephant; and, the highest point on ideological and an Asian elephant is the top of the head, versus the top of the shoulder in the religious reasons African elephant. In addition, only to preserve this 60 percent of male Asian elephants have species and halt tusks, while tusked males and females are its decline. the rule in the African species. Due to poaching, which selects against tusk- bearing males, many localities throughout Asia have depleted numbers of mature elephant bulls, resulting in an abnormal population-age structure and sex ratio. The long-term impacts of this factor on the conservation of the Asian elephant is unknown. This report presents a summary and highlights of the work supported by the Asian Elephant Conservation Fund (Fund) during 1999-2001. The Fund is administered and coordinated by the Division of International Conservation, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (Service), Department of the Interior. An Asian elephant in Sri Lanka’s Yala National Park and Biosphere Reserve. The island nation of Sri Lanka is home to some 3,000 Asian elephants. USFWS/Fred Bagley 3 If wild populations of Asian elephants are to survive into the 22nd Century, habitat, such as this in India’s Nilgiris and Eastern Ghats Elephant Reserve must be protected. Conversion to farmland is a primary threat. For Department Provincial Forestry Yunnan example, clear-cutting and an expanding agricultural frontier have already displaced Asian elephants from much of Yunnan Province, China (top and center) and Indonesia’s Lampung Province (bottom). Karl Stromayer Photographs Background Asian elephants once roamed most of the exact magnitude and rate of loss of the forest and savannah regions of Asia. Today world’s Asian elephant populations will only about 35,000-40,000 hold on never be known precisely. Many precariously in the wild places of 13 nations populations of Asian elephants occupy (Bangladesh, Bhutan, Burma, Cambodia, dense forested habitat and/or are highly China, India, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, mobile, making them difficult to count and Nepal, Sri Lanka, Thailand, and Vietnam). monitor. Recently, rigorous, science-based Additionally, an estimated 16,000 methods have been developed to assess domesticated elephants, mostly wild- elephant numbers and, indeed, these caught, assist humans in 11 of the same techniques are still being refined. Still, nations. Throughout their range, there what is known about the rate of decline of may be fewer than 10 separate populations the Asian elephant and its habitat is cause of wild Asian elephants with more than for considerable concern. 1,000 animals; half of these are found in India. Mature bulls reach more than 11,000 Habitat loss is the single greatest threat to pounds (5,000 kilograms), require upwards the survival of substantial numbers of wild of 440 pounds (200 kilograms) of vegetation Asian elephants. Recent research at the and 52 gallons (200 liters) of water per day, Smithsonian Institution’s Conservation and and inhabit home ranges of more than 80 Research Center suggests that the Asian square miles (200 km2). These facts alone elephants’ geographic range has declined demonstrate the significant demands Asian by as much as 70 percent since the 1960’s. elephants put on local resources. In Sumatra, Indonesia, believed to support 3,000 Asian elephants, and Assam, India, The Asian elephant lives in a wide variety of where 5,000 elephants reside, habitats, including savanna, scrub forest, unsustainable logging, expanding secondary forest, and closed-canopy forest. agricultural frontier, economic recession, Grasses typically account for more than civil unrest, and human immigration from 50 percent of the Asian elephant’s diet; more populous areas cause widespread grassland forest-mosaics are considered habitat loss. These activities result in optimal habitat. In such areas, greater elephant-human conflict, concentrations as high as five elephants per increasing elephant deaths by poisoning, 0.38 square mile (1 km2) have been shooting, and electrocution; and, capture recorded. The Asian elephant is and detainment of problem elephants in characterized by longevity, slow state-managed facilities. Statistics from reproduction, high mobility, and an Sumatra and Assam corroborate habitat important but imperfectly understood role loss as the foremost threat to elephant in ecosystem-level processes, such as seed conservation. During 1985-1997, forest dispersal, plant succession, and cover declined by 44 percent in Sumatra’s biogeochemical cycling. At the beginning of Lampung Province; and, between the 21st century, the survival of elephants 1990-2000, an estimated 27-39 square miles in the wild and in domesticity throughout (70-100 km2) of forest were lost annually in much of their historic range is severely Assam. threatened by a handful of well-understood threats. While habitat loss may be the ultimate cause of the decline of Asian elephant During the 20th century, throughout much numbers in the wild today, elephant-human of South and Southeast Asia, rapidly conflict over agricultural or commercial growing human populations converted plantations of rice, cassava, banana, oil forests and grasslands to agriculture, palm, rubber, tea, coffee and other crops is pastures, and villages, fragmenting widely held as the leading proximate cause elephant habitat and elephant populations. of human-induced elephant deaths over In addition, poaching for ivory and other much of the species’ range. The root cause body parts; killing of elephants in conflict of the conflict can be found in the with people over crops; and catching considerable forage requirements of elephants for domestication have also elephants and the high densities of rural, contributed to this drastic decline. The subsistence-based farmers, sometimes up 5 Local people in Mymensing Forest Division, Bangladesh rush to chase foraging elephants from their crop fields. IUCN Bangladesh to 650 people per square mile (250 people It has been estimated that 2-4 million Elephant-human per square kilometer), inhabiting elephant elephants have been captured from the conflict over range. The conflict is concentrated to wild during the history of elephant periods before harvest or during seasonal domestication, with 100,000 captured in the crops presents a movements of elephant groups, often 19th century. Because elephant calves are grave threat to resulting in deaths of elephants and slow to mature and because carrying a conservation of humans alike. In areas of high conflict, fetus may reduce the ability of a female people are frequently killed while driving elephant to work, elephant-keeping the Asian elephants out of agricultural fields or cultures typically have relied on capture elephant simply by crossing paths with an elephant from the wild (rather than captive throughout much on its way to or from a crop-raiding site. breeding) as a means of maintaining or of its range. During 2001, 31 elephants in Assam were increasing their stocks. Given that most poisoned to death during a 70-day period as captive herds of Asian elephant have been Human and retribution for crop raiding. In Sri Lanka, a denied the opportunity to optimally and elephant deaths country with approximately 3,000 freely breed, the capture and are an elephants, 110 -120 elephants are killed domestication of elephants has often meant increasingly each year, most, while crop raiding. If this a siphoning off of the wild population, rate of decline continues, all but a few leading some conservationists to common outcome token populations of wild elephants may go characterize domestication as a of this conflict. extinct in Sri Lanka during this century. “demographic black hole.” The decrease in local and regional demand for elephants as The destruction of Asian elephant “beasts of burden” and the lack of populations by unsustainable hunting has appropriate work for the world population occurred historically and continues to be a of domesticated elephants likely means major threat in the long term. Poaching, that capture and domestication are not including the killing of elephants for ivory serious threats to the survival of this or other body parts such as meat, skin, species.