07-12-2012, 11:30 AM
Location based Wild Animal Intrusion Ranger Alarm System
The conservation issue…
Habitat loss and fragmentation is threatening the survival of species across the world.
Combine this with unsustainable illegal poaching, and much of India's wildlife, including
elephants, is under threat.
The Asian elephant has disappeared from ~95% of its former range, which, some 6000
years ago extended across the Indian sub-continent to South-east Asia and China (Olivier,
1978). The main threats to Asian elephants are the loss and fragmentation of forest habitat
and their illegal killing either by poachers or in retaliation to conflict with farmers.
Human-elephant conflict
The replacement of rainforest habitat with agriculture has led to the emergence of conflict
between elephants and humans. As their habitat becomes fragmented and degraded,
elephants come into more frequent contact with both domestic and commercial plantations
and farms. Annually elephants have been reported to damage millions of rupees worth of
agricultural crops and hundreds of people are killed. This can then also lead to the killing of
hundreds of elephants in retaliation to this conflict.