Elephant census begins in Wayanad

Kozhikode: The three-day elephant census which is part of the whole India exercise started in Wayanad Wildlife Sanctuary on Wednesday. It is for the first time the entire nation is on with the elephant census at the same period.

A national-level elephant census was last conducted in 2012. As per the census WWS has 756 elephants. Experts believe that the number might have doubled by now.

Project Elephant India head VK Srivastava who was present here on opening day told DC that everything is on the right track.

“It is a complex mega exercise, with the entire nation involved”, he said, adding that the final numbers would be announced by July. “The entire staff is trained and are deployed for the census. To avoid double count, the elephant census of entire four states of South India is held in the same period.”

“This time it would be more perfect,” he added.

Carried out in every four years, the census helps the forest department to count the animals and chart conservation activities accordingly. A real picture of the situation would contribute to reducing the man-animal conflict.

For the comfort and better execution, the WWS has been divided into blocks of four to five km radius.

Wayanad wildlife warden P. Dhanesh Kumar told DC that the census would be conducted in 21 selected blocks. There are three methods used for the counting.

First is the direct method of searching for elephants in each block. The second one is the indirect method of counting through the dung found in each block and finally counting elephants in waterholes.

Mr Kumar said that in each block as many as three forest staffs had been assigned for the job. In South India, the census is on in all wildlife sanctuaries and national parks at the same time.

The enumeration started in the wildlife zones in Tamil Nadu on Monday. Experts would analyse the data from the census, and the final data would be announced in January.