Elephant census in NBengal Forests from April 23

Siliguri, Apr 7: West Bengal forest department will conduct an elephant census in North Bengal's forests from April 23.

According to the 2005 census, some 350 elephants were counted in the forests spreading over three distrcts of Darjeeling, Jalpaiguri and Coochbehar, official sources said today.

The number of elephant has been increasing in the forests steadily since guarding against poaching intensified, said chief conservator of forest (North Bengal Zone) Pop Tshering Bhutia.

He said, some elephants have also moved from neighbouring Asom and Bhutan into North Bengal corridors. ''Everyday we could find some new elephants in different corner of the forests. The population of wild elephant has been increasing in past couple of years,'' he added.

The forest department will appoint some NGO's for the 4-day census, said Mr Bhutia.

The census will be conducted by applying both the systems- direct sighting and dunk sighting -process. Statistics of forest department said, there were only 150 elephants in 1978, when the first census was conducted in northern part of Bengal. This figure was expectedly grown up in 1992 with population of 186. In 2000 the number of wild elephant was 292.

''We are expecting that the number will go up this time,'' said Manindra Chandra Biswas, the Divisional Forest oifficer in Coochbehar Division. He said the experts of the forest were apprehending trouble for increasing the population of wild elephant, such the balance ratio between male and female pachyderm.

UNI