The elephant evokes a strong emotional reaction in India. Venerated as a god, idolised on the big-screen as a best friend of man, and in desperate straits due to poaching and loss of habitat in the wild. Only male Asian Elephants bear tusks. The demand for ivory has led to the selective slaughter of tuskers in their prime. As a result the ratio of tuskers and females has fallen to an alarming low.

WPSI has recorded the loss of over 43 elephants due to poaching from September 2000 to March 2002. During that period, there were over 38 seizures of raw ivory and ivory articles around India. WPSI also has records of a total of 77 elephants that were killed during this time in man-elephant conflicts.

WPSI launched its Elephant Conservation Project in June 1999 in collaboration with two other organizations. We established an informer network in 1999 in the Corbett-Rajaji region of Uttaranchal to track down elephant poachers and ivory traders. The network was expanded in 2000-2001 to cover parts of South India, West Bengal, Orissa and Assam. Information and assistance provided by WPSI’s informers has led to some significant seizures of ivory.

Our Wildlife Crime Database now has information on the ivory trade and elephant poaching from Kerala, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Orissa, Assam, West Bengal, Chhattisgarh and Bihar. Data analysis has revealed where elephant poaching is rampant, towns and cities where the illegal ivory trade is prevalent and trade routes that are used to move ivory out of the country.

We have held workshops in villages around Rajaji National Park with villagers, forest officials and NGOs. At the workshops we discussed ways to reduce the man-elephant conflict and provide compensation for crop loss and damage caused by elephants.

WPSI also assisted in ‘Operation Waterhole’ - the filling of 12 waterholes in the Dholkhand Range of Rajaji National Park to provide water for wild elephants during dry periods.