Chennai: The population of wild elephants in the State has gone up from 2761 in the year 2017 to 2961 now with the Nilgiris Eastern Ghats elephant sanctuary having the highest number of 2477 pachyderms, according to an integrated elephant survey 2023, whose report was released by Chief Minister M K Stalin on Tuesday.
An official press release said that survey, carried out by the State Department for Environment, Climate Change and Forests in coordination with the neighboring Kerala and Karnataka governments in May, also revealed that the male female ratio of the elephant population was 1:2.17.
Efforts made by the State government towards protection of wild life like the setting up of the Agastya Hill sanctuary, Tamil Nadu elephant protection movement, maintaining and developing elephant corridors had contributed to the population of elephants going up, the release said.
The Chief Minister also launched the Tamil Nadu Forests and Wild Life Crime Control division and released a logo for it. The crime control division under the department of environment, climate change and forest, is located at the Panagal Maligai in Saidapet.
The division now employs 118 frontline forest staff and has so far registered 190 cases involving trading in elephant tusks and ivory, tiger skin and other parts, marketing snakes, parrots, sea conches and other marine animals.
Stalin also handed over five Digital Global Positioning System (DGPS) devices as part of the distribution of nine DGPS and 214 hand-held GPS equipment to engineers of the Water Resources Department.
