ELEPHANT DEATH AUDIT FRAMEWORK - ENVIRONMENT

News: Tamil Nadu introduces elephant death audit framework 

What's in the news?

       Tamil Nadu’s Forest Department has introduced an elephant death audit framework to put in place a more detailed and transparent process for recording and monitoring elephant deaths in the State.

       The broad objectives of Elephant Death Audit Framework (EDAF), the first-of-its-kind initiative in the country, are threefold, said Supriya Sahu, Additional Chief Secretary, Environment, Climate Change and Forests.

Elephant death audit framework:

       It prescribes a systematic standard protocol for conducting post-mortem to determine the reasons for death of an elephant.

       It will help to study the circumstances of preventable and unnatural deaths and formulate measures to prevent them.

       The framework protocol will be applicable all over Tamil Nadu for the death of elephants in the wild.

       It has to be uniformly followed in all wildlife areas and territorial divisions.

Elephant death audit stages:

       Stage 1: FIR - Reporting of elephant deathm

       Stage 2: Site Information Report - Area perambulation and external examination.

       Stage 3: Postmortem Interim Report - Conducting post-mortem and disposal of carcass.

       Stage 4: Management Intervention Report - Formulation of preventive measures based on outcome results.

       Stage 5: Periodic Death Audit Report - Preparation of periodical audit reports for further follow-up action.

Need of elephant death audit framework:

       To track the mortality causes for Asian Elephants.

       While poaching rates have come down drastically in the last few decades, there remains a lack of clarity on natural vs unnatural deaths of elephants, and how this is affecting the population in the long term.

Significance:

       According to the framework, identifying the cause of mortality remains a critical foundation for many questions related to population and conservation ecology.

       This framework will greatly improve transparency, assist all stake-holders in assessing the results, and facilitate standardisation and more credible comparisons of the cause of mortality.

       The framework will also be helpful in collecting mortality assessment data with high quality and credibility through a transparent process.

       The framework and the procedural steps are expected to assist wildlife managers and ecologists in ensuring accountability.

 

Go back to basics:

Asian Elephant:

       It is distributed throughout the Indian subcontinent and Southeast Asia, from India in the west, Nepal in the north, Sumatra in the south, and to Borneo in the east.

       Elephants are keystone species.

       The Asian elephant is the largest living land animal in Asia.

Habitat:

       In India, the Asian elephant is found in four fragmented populations, in the south, north, central and north-east of India.

       Their habitat ranges from wet tropical evergreen forests to semi-arid thorn and scrub forests. However, the highest densities of the elephant population are found in tropical deciduous forests.

Significance:

       Asian elephants are extremely sociable, forming groups of six to seven related females that are led by the oldest female, the matriarch.

Subspecies:

There are three subspecies of Asian elephants such as

       Indian

       Sumatran and

       Sri Lankan.

       The Indian has the widest range and accounts for the majority of the remaining elephants on the continent. 

India’s Initiatives for Conservation of Elephants:

       Gaj Yatra: A nationwide campaign to protect elephants, was launched on the occasion of World Elephant Day in 2017.

       Project Elephant: It is a centrally sponsored scheme which was launched in 1992.