World Elephant Day 2025: India’s Race to Protect Its Gentle Giants

Pashu Sandesh, 12 August 2025

Dr Akash Waghmare

On August 12, the world pauses to honour the largest land mammals on Earth—creatures that carry centuries of myth, memory, and majesty on their broad shoulders. World Elephant Day 2025 shines a spotlight on India’s most iconic yet endangered wildlife—the Asian elephant.

Home to over 60% of the world’s wild Asian elephants, India faces a dual challenge: conserving its gentle giants while managing escalating human–elephant conflict. Each year, hundreds of elephants die due to train collisions, electrocution, and habitat loss, while thousands of people are affected by crop raids and accidents. This feature explores the latest data on elephant populations, corridors, conservation efforts, and rehabilitation stories—revealing why saving elephants is critical to India’s ecological and cultural future.

An Ancient Bond Under Threat

In India, elephants are revered as symbols of wisdom and strength, immortalised in temple carvings and festivals. Yet beyond the rituals and reverence lies a harsher reality—one of shrinking forests, fractured migration routes, and mounting conflict with humans. The 2017 Elephant Census estimated 29,964 wild elephants in the country, spread across 14 states. While India holds the largest population of Asian elephants globally, their numbers are fragile, and pressures on their habitat are intensifying.

The Toll of Modern India: Tracks, Wires, and Guns

Unnatural deaths have become an alarming pattern. Railway accidents are a persistent threat, particularly in states like Assam, West Bengal, and Odisha. Between 2009 and 2020, at least 176 elephants were killed by trains—an average of over 15 each year. In the past decade, the number has crossed 200 fatalities.

Electrocution is an even deadlier menace. From 2021 to 2024, India lost 341 elephants to various causes, with over 75% dying from contact with illegal or poorly maintained electric fences—62 deaths in 2021–22, 100 in 2022–23, and 94 in 2023–24. Poaching, though reduced compared to the ivory crisis of past decades, still claims lives, often linked to the illicit wildlife trade.

Conflict That Cuts Both Ways

The loss is not one-sided. Human–elephant conflict claims hundreds of human lives annually. Between 2021 and 2024, 1,783 people died in incidents involving elephants—549 in 2021–22, rising to 629 in 2023–24. In states like Kerala, Odisha, and Karnataka, the encounters often occur in villages abutting elephant corridors, where farms overlap with traditional migratory paths. Crop raids and accidental confrontations can turn fatal within minutes.

Elephant Corridors: The Highways of the Wild

Elephants are wide-ranging animals, with herds traversing vast landscapes in search of food and water. These ancient trails, known as elephant corridors, are critical for genetic persity and survival. India has identified 138 such corridors and formally notified 33 Elephant Reserves covering over 80,000 sq km. Recently, the government earmarked 150 corridors across 15 states for protection, aiming to reduce habitat fragmentation.

Yet, the corridors are increasingly hemmed in by highways, rail lines, mining zones, and human settlements. Without safe passage, elephants are pushed into unfamiliar terrain—sparking more conflict and increasing mortality.

India’s Conservation Playbook

Since 1992, Project Elephant has been India’s central conservation programme, focusing on habitat protection, conflict mitigation, research, and care for captive elephants. But the urgency of today’s crisis has brought new strategies:

• Technology on the Tracks: Railways in Assam and West Bengal are deploying intrusion detection systems and fibre-optic sensors that alert drivers when elephants approach the tracks, giving them time to slow down.
• Community Frontlines: Initiatives like ‘Gaja Mitras’ train local youth to monitor elephant movements, guide herds away from villages, and spread awareness.
• Scientific Mapping: In Karnataka, the Forest Department and IISc are running a ₹4.7 crore, five-year study to map corridors, predict conflict hotspots, and feed data into real-time management dashboards.
• Habitat Restoration: In Jharkhand’s Palamu Tiger Reserve, a new 1,115-hectare water body and elephant-friendly grasslands are being developed to ensure year-round forage.

Rehabilitation: Stories of Survival

Rescue and rehabilitation offer rare glimpses of hope. Take Bani, a nine-month-old calf gravely injured in a train collision. Saved by Wildlife SOS and treated at India’s first dedicated elephant hospital, she underwent physiotherapy and laser treatments before finding a permanent home. Such cases remind us that timely intervention can turn tragedy into resilience.

The Road Ahead: From Crisis to Coexistence

World Elephant Day is not a ceremonial checkbox—it is a yearly audit of our progress and failures. India’s challenge is monumental: balancing development with ecological stewardship, protecting migration routes in a densely populated nation, and fostering coexistence in landscapes where boundaries blur.

The way forward demands corridor preservation, habitat connectivity, and zero-tolerance enforcement against poaching and electrocution hazards. Equally vital is community involvement—because when local people benefit from conservation, elephants cease to be seen as intruders and start being recognised as shared heritage.

As we mark this day, we are called not only to protect the elephants’ future, but also to safeguard the wild spaces that sustain them—and, ultimately, us.