How do Asian elephants survive in fragmented and unprotected landscapes?
Jeremy Hancemongabay.com
June 28, 2010
One third of the researchers' elephant locations were along rivers or in natural forest, even though these landscapes made up less than 5 percent of the landscape. Elephants were located in tea plantations 32 percent of the time, and Eucalyptus 17 percent and coffee 13 percent of the time. However, given that tea plantations cover most of the region, the elephants actually avoided tea as much as possible according to the researchers: most of the elephants' time spent in tea plantations was composed of nighttime crossings of these vast landscapes.
 Study subjects: Asian elephants roam the Valparai plateau in India. |
The authors provide a number of suggestions to ensure elephant survival in such fractured landscapes, including conservation of the remaining natural landscapes.
"In highly fragmented landscapes, such as the Valparai plateau, forest fragments and riparian vegetation play important roles in the ecology of elephants. Conserving these patches and protecting them from further degradation is crucial for conservation of elephants as they are highly dependent on natural vegetation despite its patchy and clumped distribution," the authors write. They add that logging should not occur within 20 meters of rivers, allowing the elephants room to forage.
The study further recommends promoting coffee and Eucalyptus over tea plantations in the region by "preventing conversion of plantation habitats such as coffee with shade tree cover to tea plantations."
Asian elephants are currently listed as Endangered by the IUCN Red List. Conservationists believe the global population has been cut in half in three elephant generations largely due to habitat loss and poaching.
CITATION: Kumar, M. A., Mudappa, D. and Raman, T. R. S. 2010. Asian elephant Elephas maximus habitat use and ranging in fragmented rainforest and plantations in the Anamalai Hills, India Tropical Conservation Science Vol. 3 (2)143-158.
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