Elephants moving beyond protected areas

Kathmandu, Sept. 19: Once confined  mostly to protected areas, Asian elephants (Elephas maximus) are now increasingly using lands beyond the boundaries of national parks and reserves. 

A recent study on “Dynamic occupancy modelling of Asian elephants” by elephant experts Dr. Naresh Subedi, Dr. Ashok Ram, Dr. Baburam Lamichhane and Nabin Kumar Yadav revealed this.

The team examined the elephant movement between 2012 and 2020. They revealed how conservation strategies and environmental conditions shape the change, providing hope for the future of human-elephant coexistence in Nepal’s human-dominated landscapes.

The study covered around 42,000 square kilometres of potential elephant habitat, spanning the entirety of the elephants’ range within the country. Researchers divided the study area into 159 grid cells, each measuring 15x15 km, and conducted systematic surveys during the cool, dry seasons of 2012, 2018, and 2020. 

The primary goal was to assess how elephant usage of these grid cells changed over time, particularly in protected areas and environmental factors such as stream length, road density, and terrain roughness, said Dr. Ram, one of the researchers, who is also Chief Conservation Officer at Bardiya National Park. 

Elephants expanding across the landscape

The findings show that elephants increasingly occupied both protected and non-protected areas over time. In 2012, elephant presence was largely limited to fragmented patches. However, by 2020, elephant use ??? had consolidated into two large regions, one in the western part of Nepal and the other in the east, with continuous movement between key areas such as Chitwan, Parsa, and Koshi Tappu Wildlife Reserve, the research said.

According to Dr. Ram, the increase in landscape connectivity suggests that elephants are no longer restricted to isolated populations but are moving freely between larger blocks of habitat, indicating a significant shift in landscape use.

By 2020, elephants were occupying 70 per cent of the surveyed grid cells, compared to just 42 per cent in 2012. This growing trend of elephants using non-protected areas highlights a positive shift in elephant behaviour and habitat preference.

This shows that as elephant population grows and their use of protected areas saturates, they begin exploring and utilising adjacent non-protected lands. The expansion of their range into non-protected areas aligns with both theoretical models and empirical observations of how large mammals expand their habitat during periods of population growth, he said.

The results of the study suggest that landscape connectivity for elephants in the CTML has improved over the years. The once fragmented distribution of elephant populations has shifted, with elephants now continuously occupying large regions in both the eastern and western parts of Nepal. In particular, the movement of elephants between Chitwan and Bardiya National Parks is of great interest, as it demonstrates  increased connectivity between these two major elephant subpopulations.

Previously, elephant populations in Nepal were thought to be divided into four subpopulations. However, this research suggests that two larger subpopulations now exist -- one in eastern Nepal, between Koshi Tappu and Chitwan-Parsa, and another in western Nepal, beyond Kapilvastu, Dr. Ram said.

This consolidation of elephant populations into larger, more connected groups may be due to the restoration of forest patches in the Chure foothills and the growing population of elephants in core habitats.

The increasing use of non-protected areas by elephants presents both opportunities and challenges for conservation. On the one hand, it shows that elephants are adapting to human-dominated landscapes and that habitat connectivity is improving. On the other hand, the expansion of elephants into non-protected areas is likely to increase the risk of human-elephant conflict (HEC), as elephants come into closer contact with human settlements and agricultural lands.

Reducing human-elephant conflict for long-term coexistence

According to Dr. Subedi, Member Secretary of the National Trust for Nature Conservation (NTNC), efforts to minimize human-elephant conflict (HEC) have been intensified. Some degraded areas within the 

landscape have already been restored, but bottleneck regions in Jhapa, Morang, Sunsari, and Mohattari still require attention. In these areas, implementing elephant-friendly farming practices and further restoration efforts are essential.

Dr. Subedi also stressed the need to address HEC by changing human behaviour. He said that if communities respond more positively to elephants, two-thirds of the fatal incidents could be prevented. 

Strengthening the capacity of Rapid Response Teams and frontline staff, restoring critical bottleneck areas to allow elephants safe passage, fostering trans-border cooperation, and establishing insurance mechanisms to compensate for elephant-related damages are crucial steps in mitigating conflict, he concluded.