Every year on August 12, the world celebrates World Elephant Day. It was observed by two Canadian filmmakers, Patricia Sims and Michael Clark, in collaboration with the Elephant Reintroduction Foundation in Thailand. Patricia Sims has been in charge of World Elephant Day since 2012. She is the founder of the World Elephant Society.
Her organisation has been successful in raising awareness about the threats to elephants and the need for international protection.The day highlights the difficult work of preserving and protecting jumbos in the face of habitat disruption.
According to the report, this is especially true in South Karnataka, which, according to the results of the 2017 census, is home to approximately 6,049 free-ranging elephants in the wild and has the state’s highest concentration of elephants.
While an increase in elephant populations suggests that they are not on the verge of extinction, it also raises concerns about the potential for increased conflict as a result of habitat disruption and devastation caused by linear projects.
As they deal with conflict situations in and around the Nagarahole, Bandipur, Kodagu, and Hassan-Sakleshpur belts, the Forest Department faces a difficult task of balancing conservation on the one hand and reducing human-elephant conflict on the other.
In the previous 22 years, the agency caught and rehabilitated 74 wild animals in the Hassan division alone, but there have been many more elephant deaths from both natural and man-made causes, according to the report.
According to the Karnataka Forest Department, 79 elephants died in the state in 2021, with 17 of them dying from non-natural causes such as electrocution and poaching.
According to the report, 40 people died as a result of human-animal conflict in the 14 forest rings spread across 30 districts in 2021-22 (though not all of them were caused by elephants).
According to data available through May, there were 11 elephant deaths in 2022, with 10 of them being caused by natural causes. However, four or five more elephants have died from electrocution in the Kodagu area in the last month alone, and when combined with data from other locations, the number of elephant deaths from non-natural causes is expected to rise.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi called for commitment to elephant conservation on Friday. He tweeted photos in honour of World Elephant Day 2022, saying, “On #WorldElephantDay, reiterating our commitment to protect the elephant. You would be happy to know that India houses about 60% of all Asian elephants. The number of elephant reserves has risen in the last 8 years. I also laud all those involved in protecting elephants.”
In another tweet Modi wrote: “The successes in elephant conservation must be viewed in context of the larger efforts underway in India to minimise human-animal conflict, and integrating local communities and their traditional wisdom in furthering environmental consciousness.”