Elephant census over in Karnataka forests

Mysore, May 9 (UNI) A three-day elephant census was completed in the five ranges of Karnataka coming under the Biligiri Ranganatha Wildlife Sanctuary, Bandipur and Nagarahole National Parks.

The census would help to establish the number of elephants living in the wilds in Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu.

The last census was held in 2001 when there were 6,008 elephants in the wild in Karnataka, 5,737 in Kerala and 2,971 in Tamil Nadu.

The census began on Monday using three different technical methods on each day of the project. They were the sampling block method, water hole count and line transact or indirect dung method involving forest officials and NGOs in all the sanctuary limits.

Deputy Conservator of Forests (DCF) Wildlife Division C Raju, told newsmen today at Chamarajanagara, about 70 km from here, that the project aimed to study the family size, structure and population trends among the pachyderms.

About 30 per cent of the forest area was being covered under the block count method. As many as 43 beats had been identified in the Biligiri Sanctuary each of which would be covered by a four to five member team of Forest Department officials and NGO activists.

The data collected would be analysed to assess the number of elephants present in the area. Pachyderms had been found in large numbers in the moist deciduous forest region in the B R Sanctuary.

During the last census, 2,000 of the 6,000 elephants in the state were found to be in the B R Sanctuary, Mr Rajiv Said. A census of tigers and other wild animals would also be carried out in June or July. This would also involve three methods namely the pug mark, camera trap and scat analysis methods. A team of officials from Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology, Hyderabad would assist in the tiger census, he said.

UNI