For many years, the forests and jungles surrounding many cities of India and the Delhi, India hotels and businesses, were filled with wild elephants. While no official census is on record for the time in the early part of the Seventeenth Century it is said that one of the Moghul Emperors, Jehangir had captive, close to 115,000 elephants in his empire. The wild elephants today are descendants of Jehangir’s elephants, and scientists have extrapolated from this, that there were most likely, at one time more than one million animals in the wild. Sadly, the population today is no where near that number.

While there are still some relatively large groups of elephants living in the Northeastern and Southern regions of the country, for many of the animals the threat of extinction is quite possible. As in most developing countries, roads are built, buildings are constructed, and this creates less and less space. Their natural habitat is disappearing. Beginning in the middle of the twentieth century, this has been the case throughout large portions of India. The population has exploded, and the demand for development in order to support the economy, has led to the cultivation of former territories of the elephants.

This has raised concern, and in 1992 the organization, Project Elephant, was backed by the government of India. Project Elephant dedicated their energy to ensuring wild life preserves, with protected ‘bridges’ throughout the country as well. This was to cater to the natural migratory patterns of the herds. The elephant/human conflict is one aspect they address, as well as the constant improvements to the welfare of the elephants that are domesticated for use in the work force. They established twenty-five reserves and a survey taken in 2005 revealed that more than 20,000 animals were living in the reserves and the that elephant population was on the rise. Part of this is also due to the fact that Project Elephant is also the poaching ‘watch-dogs’. Many of the male elephants had been killed for their tusks, seriously affecting the genetic and reproduction viability of the species. Today, it appears to be looking up for the elephants of India, as Project Elephant continues their protection of and dedication to these gentle beasts.

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