MEDIA CENTER
There’s always something going on in the world of Nepal's elephants. From new campaigns to emergency rescues, there’s alway something exciting to share. Make sure to check our updates often so you won’t miss out on important stories, announcements or opportunities.
MEET THE SCHOOL TEACHER MAKING WAY FOR 500 ELEPHANTS TO CROSS 25 TEA GARDENS
August 16, 2021
The Pascal Munda incident near the Numaligarh’s Morongi tea estate in Upper Assam stirred some much-needed discourse on Human-Elephant Conflict (HEC) in July this year. A group of villagers teased a herd of elephants on NH 39 and when one of them retaliated, it led to the death of Munda, a local. The entire ordeal was captured on camera and soon went viral.
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Whose fault was it? The elephants who were quietly passing through a human colony located between tea estates, or the humans who felt encroached upon by the herd? It was a case of absence of altruistic behaviour.
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Last year, an HEC incident occurred in north Bengal’s Titi – Buxa corridor. An intoxicated 19-year-old was attacked by a mother elephant after the teen hurled stones at her baby. During the attack, he fell into a nullah, but was miraculously saved. A few kilometres away, a 50-year-old had died in 2018 after he chased an elephant for a selfie.
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An obsession with entertainment and making instant viral videos at the expense of the majestic creature is slowly becoming a pattern in several parts of India, from Karnataka to West Bengal.
WORLD ELEPHANT DAY: NATIONAL PARKS TAKING HELP OF ELEPHANTS TO PROTECT WILDLIFE
August 12, 2021
KATHMANDU: Tamed elephants have been used for various purposes for ages. These animals are reliable means for transportation, sightseeing, and hunting.
Going by history, the rulers including monarchs and Ranas in particular have been found employing elephants for hunting wild animals.
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However, their use in protecting wild animals has been increased lately. Six national parks in Tarai have been using domesticated elephants for the conservation of wild animals.
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Ramprit Yadav, who served as the chief in the Park for three terms, said that the tusker has historical and religious importance as well, besides its usefulness in conservation works.
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Image credit: Kameron Kincade Unsplash
SOLAR WATER PUMPS CAN BE HELPFUL TO QUENCH THE THIRST OF NEPAL WILDLIFE
June 24, 2021
It is a good time to look back at how Nepal has set an example in conservation through creating a favourable environment for its wildlife. Nepal, having different natural ecosystems, ranging from lowland Terai region to the high Himalayas, is home to diverse floral and faunal species. The diverse climatic and topographic conditions have favoured a maximum diversity of flora and fauna in Nepal. The country occupies only about 0.1 per cent of the global area but harbours 3.2 per cent and 1.1 per cent of the world’s known flora and fauna respectively. Nepal has established a very good network of protected area systems with 12 national parks, one wildlife reserve, one hunting reserve, six conservation areas, and 13 buffer zones, covering 23.39 per cent of the country’s land.
A NOVEL THEORY OF ASIAN ELEPHANT HIGH-FREQUENCY SQUEAK PRODUCTION
June 17, 2021 -Â Veronika C. Beeck, Gunnar Heilmann, Michael Kerscher & Angela S. Stoeger
BMC Biology
Abstract
Anatomical and cognitive adaptations to overcome morpho-mechanical limitations of laryngeal sound production, where body size and the related vocal apparatus dimensions determine the fundamental frequency, increase vocal diversity across taxa. Elephants flexibly use laryngeal and trunk-based vocalizations to form a repertoire ranging from infrasonic rumbles to higher-pitched trumpets. Moreover, they are among the few evolutionarily distantly related animals (humans, pinnipeds, cetaceans, birds) capable of imitating species-atypical sounds. Yet, their vocal plasticity has so far not been related to functions within their natural communicative system, in part because not all call types have been systematically studied. Here, we reveal how Asian elephants (Elephas maximus) produce species-specific squeaks (F0 300–2300 Hz) by using acoustic camera recordings to visualize sound emission and examining this alongside acoustic, behavioral, and morphological data across seven captive groups.
NEPAL’S WILD ELEPHANTS ARE ALSO ON THE MOVE
June 13, 2021
Conservation success means tigers and elephants are using jungle corridors for annual monsoon migration.
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Before Covid-19 and lockdowns I would be guiding tourists around Bardia National Park this time of year. But the pandemic has meant empty homestays along the Khata Wildlife Corridor that connects wilderness areas in India and Nepal.
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Local villages may have lost their income from eco-tourism, but the absence of people during the lockdown means that wild animals have reclaimed their space.
ELEPHANTS IN SAURAHA, CHITWAN, HAVE BEEN JOBLESS SINCE THE CORONA EPIDEMIC BEGAN.
June 5, 2021
Their main job was to take tourists around. However, the global outbreak of the corona virus has prevented tourists from visiting. Tourism entrepreneurs of Sauraha are being harassed to raise useless elephants. The relief has been distributed to the elephants of Sauraha just like the relief has been distributed to the unemployed people with the objective of making it easier for them to raise elephants who have to spend more than one lakh rupees a month. Two conservationist organizations have provided the elephants with regular food and lentils. The materials were distributed in Sauraha on Friday in a joint effort of Nepal Elephant Walk Sanctuary and Gentle Giants Stay Home Project, which has been working in the field of elephant conservation. In the process, 1,025 kilograms of chickpeas and 820 kilograms of molasses were given to the elephants through Rishi Tiwari, chairperson of United Elephant Management Cooperative, said Sudha Dhakal, chairperson of Nepal Elephant Walk Sanctuary. The materials were given to 41 elephants in Sauraha. Elephants, like humans, do not have enough food right now, 'she said, adding,' That's why we've done a little to help. ' The United Elephant Management Cooperative of Sauraha, which has been operating more than 60 elephants, now has less than 40 elephants. A few months ago, more than a dozen elephants were sold in India due to problems with rearing in the previous year's lockdown.
NEPAL ELEPHANT RIDE OPERATORS ILLEGALLY SELLING ANIMALS TO INDIA
April 5, 2021
Facing a tourism slump due to the Covid-19 pandemic, elephant ride operators around Nepal’s Chitwan National Park are selling their animals to India in defiance of laws.
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Padam does not remember when he began keeping elephants at his hotel. But he says that guests used to pay well for elephant rides in the community forests outside Nepal’s famous Chitwan National Park.
POLICE TRACK INDIA-NEPAL ELEPHANT TRAFFICKING
March 19, 2021
As safari tourism collapses, Nepali captive elephants are being sold illegally to buyers in India.
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A domesticated elephant used for safaris in Chitwan National Park which was being illegally transported to India in contravention of the CITES (Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species) is being tracked by Nepal police at the border.
HUMAN-ELEPHANT CONFLICT: LONG-TERM SOLUTION NEEDED
January 21, 2021
Retaliatory killing of marauding elephants has not reached a critical level in Nepal if compared with the situation in other South Asian countries. However, farmers’ patience could be running out. An amicable settlement of disputes and long-term solution to this knotty problem should, therefore, be sought before it is too late.
ALONG WITH HUMAN CASUALTIES, ELEPHANT DEATHS ARE ALSO ON THE RISE
January 10, 2021
With the increasing trend of wild elephants from the surrounding Koshi Tappu Wildlife Reserve causing damage in the human settlement, elephant deaths are also increasing.
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A 22-year-old male tusked elephant has died after being electrocuted by a local to protect his crops, according to the Reserve administration. According to Ashok Ram, the warden of the Reserve, the elephant was found dead after being chased by the villagers after it had entered the village.
HUMAN-ELEPHANT CONFLICT IN NEPAL: 7 THINGS YOU SHOULD KNOW
January 20, 2021
The electrocution of a wild tusker at Khadak municipality in Sapatari district on January 9, 2021, has once again reminded us of the thorny problem of human-elephant conflict in Nepal. Local farmers who live on the fringe of forested areas are destined to face foraging wild Asian elephants (Elephas maximus), especially during the harvesting season.
The said wild animal is reported to have been electrocuted at an electric fence erected by locals to prevent foraging elephants from entering into their crop fields and village.
ASIAN ELEPHANTS AND THEIR STATUS IN NEPAL: A REVIEW
January 01, 2021
Captive Asian elephants are often misinterpreted as domesticated, because they have been kept and trained by humans for thousands of years. However, the majority have historically been captured from the wild and tamed for use by humans. Although they can breed in captivity, like big cats and other wild animals, they are not selectively bred, largely because of their long reproductive cycle. For this reason, there are no domesticated breeds of Asian elephants: They remain wild animals (Werneth, 2019).
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Nearly 250 captive elephants are estimated to exist in Nepal (DNPWC, 2009) across the narrow and fragmented landscape in Terai and Churia Hills (Pradhan et al., 2011). Captive elephants in Nepal are owned by the Government as well as private organizations/ individuals, using the elephants for various human oriented activities. The population of captive elephants is given in Figure 1. Activities related to the national park involve patrolling, prevention of human- elephant conflict, tourism, enumeration of a few wildlife species within the park, etc. For all these tasks, the national park uses the services of a number of captive elephants maintained by the department within the park.
KOSHI TAPPU ‘KILLER’ ELEPHANT HAS CALMED DOWN: OFFICIALS
December 28, 2020
An elephant which the authorities were considering putting it down, for killing people and causing property damage appears to be safe, for now.
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The male wild elephant from Koshi Tappu Wildlife Reserve, which recently killed a man in Sunsari, seems to have averted its death as it has not caused any havoc lately.
MAN KILLED IN ELEPHANT ATTACK IN SUNSARI
December 14, 2020
SUNSARI, Dec 14: A man was killed in an elephant attack in Sunsari on Monday morning. The deceased has been identified as 28-year-old Pramod Yadav, a local resident of Shreepurjabdi area of Koshi Rural Municipality-7.
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The elephant attacked Yadav when he was working at his farm. The man died on the spot, according to the District Police Office.
TUSKERS TRASH HOUSES, GRAINS WORTH MILLIONS
December 7, 2020
Wild elephants from Koshi Tappu Wildlife Reserve destroyed seasonal food grains worth millions and more than half-a-dozen houses at Shambhunath Municipality in Saptari on Saturday.
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The tuskers destroyed houses and crops at wards 2 and 7 of the municipality at midnight. Houses belonging to Mohammad Jahanir, Asaraddin, Hajaradin, Simarit Das, Suk Kumar Das, Bhim Das, Raj Kumar Das and Kashi Kumar Das, among others, were destroyed.
SET THE ELEPHANTS FREE
November 21, 2020
Chitwan can be promoted as a completely ride-free, chain-free area for elephants.
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Humans and elephants have shared environments for thousands of years, but what might surprise readers is that a quarter of the world’s Asian elephants live in captivity.
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These elephants are a vital and vibrant part of Nepal’s history, and their use has been documented since at least the fifth century in areas as diverse as war machines, living monuments to regal power and wealth, rewards for service and currently as tourist transport.
SPEAKING FOR ELEPHANTS
November 6, 2020
Lisa Choegyal’s column ‘The Elephant Dilemma’, 4 October 2020 elicited many comments from readers, some of which are excerpted here:
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As a group of animal welfare organisations we have to disagree with Lisa Choegyal’s stand on elephant safaris.
CHITWAN FESTIVAL LOSES SPONSORS AFTER ANIMAL CRUELTY VIDEOS GO PUBLIC
March 12, 2020
KATHMANDU:Â After People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) provided new video footage of a handler relentlessly beating an elephant with a stick 23 times within 30 minutes at the most recent Chitwan Elephant Festival, one of the top travel agencies in India has confirmed that it is ending its support to the festival.
