Challenges Facing Preservation and Conservation of Asian Elephants

Abstract

Asian Elephants face near extinction in every place they exist; they lose their struggle for survival due to human-elephant conflicts, lack of food and water for survival, ivory poaching and illegal capture of them for work as well as for tourism. Their habitat has also been reduced due to development. As a result, the population of Asian Elephants has become less and they are isolated. At present, there are only 30,000 – 50,000 elephants in the wild, whereas, it was hundreds of thousands at the turn of the 20th century and they are scattered in habitat in 13 Asian countries. To overcome the challenges facing the preservation and conservation of Asian Elephant, proper action should be taken to alleviate the conflicts between development and wild life conservation. As such, there should be clear strategies such as protecting elephants and their habitat, promoting elephant-friendly policies, monitoring elephant numbers (population), reducing human-elephant conflict, conducting research on elephants to introduce conservation strategies and minimizing threats to elephants and their habitat. Asian Elephants are adaptable in diet and behavior and they can survive in any place from grasslands to rainforests. An elephant eats about 200 kilograms of food per day. This amount cannot be found in one place. Thus, they have to migrate to vast areas to find food and water, especially, during the dry season. Such vast areas are rare in Asian countries which itself is a threat to these elephants. This fact also leads to human-elephant conflicts as they tend to approach villages in search of food. This paper aims to discuss the challenges facing preservation and conservation of Asian Elephants. To understand the magnitude of the human-elephant conflict and focus on the preservation and conservation of Asian Elephants, there should be better mechanisms to mitigate the damage caused by such conflicts.