Tamil Nadu has 3,063 elephants as per latest census

Chennai: Tamil Nadu has a total of 3,063 elephants in the wild, according to the latest census conducted by the state government.

The 2024 elephant census report was released by Chief Minister M K Stalin on Saturday.

An official release said, as per the census report, the population of wild elephants in Tamil Nadu has increased by a little above 100 this year when compared to last year.

"The State has an estimated 3,063 elephants as against 2,961 according to the 2023 census,", it said.

The elephant population, which stood at 2,761 as per 2017 census, went up to 3,063 thanks to the various wildlife protection steps taken by the DMK government that led to increase in the jumbo population in the State, the release said.

The three-day integrated Elephant Population Estimation was conducted from May 23 to 25 in the forest areas of Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh.

In Tamil Nadu, the population estimation of elephants was conducted in 681 blocks spread across 26 forest divisions. As many as 2,178 personnel, including 1,836 forest department officials, rangers, watchers and workers and 342 NGOs were involved in this census.

During the census, more than 8,652 kms were covered by foot.

As per the report, elephants in the State have sex ratio of 1 male to 2.03 female and density of 0.37 elephant per sqkm.

Among the 26 divisions, Sathyamangalam division has the highest number of elephants (372), followed by Coimbatore forest division with 336 elephants.

The census also revealed that 40 per cent of the total elephants are adults, 33 per cent are sub-adults, 17 per cent juveniles and 10 per cent calves.

The State had an estimated elephant population of 3,737 during the census conducted in 2002.

In 2007 and 2012, it rose to 3,867 and 4,015 respectively, before falling to 2,761 in 2017.

It may be noted that the State has a total elephant habitat of 8,989.63 sqkm across the 26 forest ranges. Tamil Nadu has five elephant reserves in Nilgiris Eastern Ghats, Coimbatore, Anamalai, Srivilliputhur and Agasthyamalai.