The population of elephants has doubled in Andhra Pradesh in the past decade, despite the pachyderms taking the lives of 13 people in the forests of north Andhra Pradesh since early 2008.
Srikakulam District Forest Officer Ch. Shanti Swaroop told The Hindu that the casualties occurred in the districts of Srikakulam and Vizianagaram.
Ironically, the incident of irate villagers killing one elephant and burying it in a field in Srikakulam district in 2010 forced the forest authorities to chalk out plans to address the intensified conflict between forest dwellers and elephants. The Synchronized Elephant Population Estimation, India, 2017, published by the Ministry of Environment and Forest and Climate Change (MoEFCC) throws light on the situation. “The total number of elephants reported was between 55 and 65 in Andhra Pradesh; 30 in Chittoor West, 24 in Tirupati forest division and 4 in Srikakulam division.”
Regular movements
According to the Elephant Division of the MoEFCC, a total of 28 elephants was reported in A.P in 2007, 41 in 2012 and 65 in 2017.
Given the regular movements of a few herds between Andhra forests and the ones in Odisha and Karnataka, the number of total elephants was estimated between 55 and 65 as per the ‘direct sighting’ method of the census. The census is normally carried out once in four years, the next census will come out in 2022.
“It is a celebrating development that the population of the elephants in A.P has doubled. Having the data on the gender of the elephants is one of the key factors to come up with scientific reports on the growth of the elephants’ population in future,” wildlife biologist Rakesh Kalwa told The Hindu .
Associated with the Hyderabad-based Wildlife Research and Conservation Society, Mr. Rakesh is engaged in documenting the gender of the elephants in the State. “Our findings on the gender during the 2017 census does not support for scientific conclusions on the gender. However, the next census will mostly have scientific data on the gender,” he said.
Mr. Rakesh says pachyderms roaming in northern Andhra are more ferocious than the others in the State.
