Saving Elephas Maximus

The size of an Asian elephant is symbolic of its larger-than-life role in Asian culture. For 4,000 years, these elephants have carried soldiers into battle, hauled logs in inaccessible jungles, and participated in religious ceremonies.

But without help from scientists and conservationists, Asian elephants could soon be extinct. Their habitat has declined by 70 percent over the past 150 years and this species is listed as endangered on the World Conservation Union’s (IUCN’s) Red List of Threatened Animals. Other threats to their survival include human-elephant conflict, ivory poaching, and the capture of wild elephants to supplement the elephants in work or tourism camps.

Habitat Decline

Asian elephants once ranged from Iraq to southern China and possibly Java. Now, however, they live in small, isolated pockets of widely dispersed habitat in south India, Sri Lanka, and Southeast Asia. Few of these remaining habitats may be large enough to support elephant populations long-term.

In recent years, elephant habitat has declined due to the global demand for crops grown on the land these animals inhabit. In some places, their habitat is being converted to palm oil plantations. Palm oil is one of the most popular cooking oils on the global market and is in high demand in Europe and Asia as biofuel. Palm oil is also used in many products sold in the U.S., including cosmetics, detergents, and shampoos.

Additionally, as the human population in Asia has boomed, more people have converted elephant habitat into crop land to feed their families. Many of the people who take over wild elephant habitat are among the most indigent of the Asian population. They have few alternatives to living on the margins of elephant habitat and raising crops. To them, elephants are a threat to their lives and livelihood.

Protecting the World’s Largest Land Mammal

The National Zoo has a rich history of caring for and studying Asian elephants. Zoo scientists have cared for these animals for more than 100 years and have studied them in the wild for nearly 40 years.

Helping on Their Home Turf

About 30,000 to 50,000 Asian elephants live in the wild today. An additional 15,000 working elephants in Asia are used in the timber and tourist industries. Many of these, however, are now unemployed and living in substandard living conditions. National Zoo scientists are collaborating with conservation partners to improve living conditions for these elephants.

Zoo scientists were also responsible for timing the insemination of a female that resulted in Thailand’s first baby elephant conceived by artificial insemination. They helped teach Thai veterinarians and taught them how to use a critical artificial insemination technique.

Currently, many of the Zoo’s elephant conservation efforts are focused in Myanmar (Burma) and Sri Lanka. “[These countries] are two remaining strongholds for Asian elephants and are very important to the animals’ conservation,” says Peter Leimgruber, the National Zoo’s Conservation GIS Lab Director.

Managing Elephants in Myanmar

“A major part of [the Zoo’s elephant conservation] efforts are focused in Myanmar because it supports more stretches of possible Asian elephant habitat than any other Asian country,” says Leimgruber. “It also holds one of the largest working elephant populations in the world. As we work to improve the conservation and management of these animals, we are able to study the relationship between elephants in the wild and the working elephants.”

In 2001, Zoo scientists began a collaborative project with the Nature and Wildlife Conservation Division of Myanmar’s Forest Department. The project focused on the conservation of elephant populations in Alaungdaw Kathapa National Park (AKNP) and Htamanthi Wildlife Sanctuary (HWS). During the project, scientists monitored elephant populations throughout the two areas and conducted attitude surveys of 69 villages in the surrounding areas.

As a result of these efforts, the Zoo and its partners developed an elephant management plan to re-establish viable populations of wild elephants at AKNP and HWS within the next ten years, and make AKNP and HWS models for managing wild elephants in Myanmar and other range countries in Southeast Asia.

Additionally, the Zoo assembled a large, diverse group of elephant experts in June 2004 to review the status of Myanmar’s wild elephants. During the conference, scientists concluded that as few as 1,100 to 1,800 wild elephants may remain in Myanmar. Although scientists recognize that this estimate may be too low, they agree that it is significantly below 6,000 to 10,000, the range of estimates previously suggested for Myanmar’s wild elephants.

Satellite Tracking

Because it is difficult to observe and track individual elephants, scientists use different methods—including ecological studies and radio telemetry—to estimate population numbers and gather important information. The National Zoo has worked with radio telemetry—specifically satellite tracking—for many years. In fact, Zoo scientists were among the first to use satellite technology to track Asian elephants.

Satellite tracking is one of the National Zoo’s most promising elephant conservation and research tools. Satellite collars allow researchers to determine an elephant’s precise location several times each day. This information is then used to determine seasonal movements, home range size, and habitat use.

When attaching satellite collars to elephants in Myanmar, a collaring team tracks a herd using work elephants called koonkie, usually large adult males, which are trained to protect the team from attacks by wild elephants. An individual elephant from the wild herd is then selected and anaesthetized with a dart. Once the elephant is asleep, the radio collar is quickly attached. An antidote wakes the elephant again in seconds, and the entire process takes less than 30 minutes from the moment the animal is darted.

Studying the Species in Sri Lanka

“The Zoo has a history of studying elephants in Sri Lanka and its scientists conducted the first—and one of the most comprehensive—studies on Asian elephant ecology and behavior,” says Leimgruber. “Sri Lanka probably has about 4,000 Asian elephants remaining—a huge population for a small island nation around the size of West Virginia.”
In Sri Lanka, which also has one of the highest levels of people-elephant conflict, the main strategy for conserving Asian elephants has been to try to limit the elephants to protected areas.

But today, these locations are running out of space. “Only 1,200 Asian elephants fit in the current protected areas,” says Prithiviraj Fernando of the Centre for Conservation Research Sri Lanka (CCRSL). “But around 3,000 elephants live outside of these locations. Much of our efforts are focused on creating new locations to conserve elephants living outside of protected areas.”

Space, however, isn’t the only challenge in Sri Lanka’s protected areas.  Food is also very limited. “Elephants have huge food requirements and spend much of their day—usually around 17 hours—looking for edible plants,” says Leimgruber. “In fact, a grown elephant may eat between 330 to 660 pounds of vegetation a day.”

To address these issues, Zoo scientists are helping Fernando and CCRSL develop alternative strategies for elephant conservation. Based on over 15 years of field research, these strategies will help find ways to mitigate conflict with people and provide elephants with the continued use of habitat outside protected areas.

Translocating Wild Elephants

In Sri Lanka, more than 80 percent of elephant habitat is affected by some sort of human disturbance, and farmers kill about 100 elephants per year. At the same time, around 50 to 60 people in Sri Lanka die every year in conflicts with elephants.

Working to alleviate these issues, Fernando and his colleagues are helping the Sri Lankan Wildlife Department to investigate the effectiveness of elephant translocation (the capture and moving of a wild animal to reduce conflict). Using three satellite collars provided by the National Zoo, they have started tracking the movements of translocated elephants. Learning about the travel patterns of individual and groups of elephants will offer insight into how and why people and elephants come into conflict, and potentially how to mitigate it.

Not all translocated elephants adapt well to their new surroundings, however. One translocated elephant, tracked by the National Zoo and CCRSL, walked around 30 miles to return to his home range. Another wandered over 124 miles and likely raided crops along the way. These extreme distances are unusual. In 2005, Zoo scientists and their Sri Lankan colleagues tracked the movements of Asian elephants around Yala National Park. On average, the animals only traveled two to three miles per day!

A Future for Asian Elephants

To help save Asian elephants in zoos and in the wild, the Zoo has launched Elephant Trails: A Campaign to Save Asian Elephants, which is a comprehensive breeding, education, and scientific research program.

One of Elephant Trails’ main components is an extensive conservation program built on decades of National Zoo science—including the work in Myanmar and Sri Lanka—which will help scientists further understand human-elephant conflict, stabilize existing habitats and populations, and improve conditions for work elephants in Asia.

The program will also include an education initiative that will highlight the Zoo’s work in Myanmar and Sri Lanka and will feature the Zoo’s Asian elephants as ambassadors for their species.

In addition, the cornerstone of the campaign is a new, expanded home for elephants at the Zoo. In this spacious and stimulating new home, the elephants will breed and, staff hope, grow into a multi-generational herd. The Zoo plans to break ground on this portion of Elephant Trails this summer.

Elephant Trails will provide a new exhibit area that will help visitors learn about conservation problems in Asia and what can be done to rectify them. Zoo goers can also check out exhibits about how Zoo scientists track elephants with satellite collars, and how they are working to prevent people-elephant conflict.

You can help protect Asian elephants in zoos and in the wild.

“Elephants are a flagship species,” says Leimgruber. “If scientists and conservationists can figure out a way to save elephants and their habitats, they will have figured out how to save many Asian species. We know we have many challenges ahead of us, but we are confident that we and our friends in Asia can make a difference to Asian elephant conservation.”

This article originally appeared in Wildlife Adventures, August/September 2007.