Asian Elephant Elephas Maximus Habitat Use and Ranging in Fragmented Rainforest and Plantations in the Anamalai Hills, India

Abstract

The persistence of wide-ranging mammals such as Asian elephants in fragmented landscapes requires extending conservation efforts into human-dominated landscapes around protected areas. Understanding how elephants use such landscapes may help facilitate their movements and reduce conflict incidence. We studied elephants' use of fragmented habitats and ranging patterns of focal herds in a landscape of rainforest fragments embedded in tea, coffee, and Eucalyptus plantations in the Anamalai Hills. Elephant herds entering this landscape were tracked daily between April 2002 and March 2006, resulting in 985 GPS locations of herds obtained across six major habitats. Natural vegetation in rainforest fragments and riparian habitats, despite low coverage in the landscape, was preferred by elephants during the day. At night, elephants preferred riparian vegetation, avoided other habitats such as swamps and settlements, while the remaining habitats were used proportional to availability. Use of rainforest fragments and riparian vegetation increased over three years of study with a corresponding decline in the use of tea monoculture. Among plantation habitats, coffee, and Eucalyptus were used significantly more during wet and dry seasons, respectively. The concentration of elephants along a major riparian system in the center of the landscape emphasized the role of water and food availability in habitat use during the dry season. Protection of rainforest fragments, secondary vegetation along rivers, and regulated and sequential felling (instead of clear-felling) of Eucalyptus along elephant movement routes will help retain forage, cover, and passage routes of elephant herds and may reduce direct human-elephant encounters in such fragmented landscapes.

Dispersal and ranging patterns of the Asian Elephant (Elephas maximus) in relation to their interactions with humans in Nepal

“…This has been validated by the work of Kumar et al (2010), who showed that the high concentration of locations of two herds in Sholayar River and its tributaries in South India during the dry season reflects the influence of water and food availability on spatial distribution. Sukumar (1989) also emphasized that small home ranges are associated with rich and diverse habitats.…”

Shift of paradigm needed towards improving human–elephant coexistence in monoculture landscapes in Sabah

“…Over the past 40 years, this natural habitat has been reduced by at least 60% following forest conversion to other types of land use (primarily agriculture) (Gaveau et al ., ). Elephants increasingly rely on non‐protected areas for their movements and dispersal, and food ranging activities (Fernando et al ., ; Kumar et al ., ; Gaveau et al ., ). Several Managed Elephant Ranges are completely isolated from other elephant populations in extensive oil‐palm production landscapes; for example, Tabin Wildlife Reserve and Lower Kinabatangan.…”

Assessing impact of forest landscape dynamics on migratory corridors: a case study of two protected areas in Himalayan foothills

“…Since wildlife corridors are typically narrow and vulnerable, they must be managed with extreme caution. However, many wildlife corridors are getting encroached upon by people (Kushwaha and Hazarika 2004;DeFries et al 2005;Giriraj et al 2008;Kumar et al 2010). To minimize these, a structural and functional connectivity between the PAs are crucial.…”

“…In the countries like India, with growing economy and boom to urbanization, human beings are moving towards forests (Nepali 2006), clearing vast amount of flora and fauna (Srivastava et al 2002). This has resulted in habitat fragmentation (Kumar et al 2010), range reduction (Kushwaha and Hazarika 2004;Giriraj et al 2008), shrinking corridors between PAs (DeFries et al 2005), increasing human-wildlife conflicts (Choudhury 2004;Blaustein 2007) and local species extinctions (Pimm and Raven 2000).…”