Population Status of the Asian Elephant (Elephas maximus) in the Rakhine Yoma, Myanmar

Surendra Varma, U Ye Htut, U Uga

Abstract


Myanmar perhaps supports the second largest remaining populations of Asian elephant in the world. The currentsurvey was carried out in seven forest reserves of the Rakhine Yoma, using indirect method of estimating elephantdensity. In addition to this, village surveys were carried out to obtain information on the extent of human-elephantconflict. A total of 148 transects covering 296 km was surveyed and the encountered rate of dung piles varied from0.4 to 2.9 km-1 with a total dung encounter rate of 1.19 km-1. The defaecation rate was 19.04 and overall decay ratefor 100 fresh dung piles was 0.0057 d-1. The density estimates for different regions in Rakhine varied from 0.008to 0.2 km-2 with an average density of elephants for all the regions surveyed being 0.05 elephants km-2. Of the 44villages visited during the survey, 47 % villages had problems with elephant depredation. Although the habitat isdisturbed by logging and other means, relatively low human population density, inaccessibility, and large andcontiguous forest cover have some hope for the conservation and management of elephants in Rakhine.

Keywords


Population Density, Habitat Usage Pattern, Human-Elephant Conflict, Conservation

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