Explained: Will elephant collaring minimise man-animal conflict in Assam?

The state’s forest department, in collaboration with the NGO World Wildlife Fund (WWF)-India, had recently radio-collared a wild elephant for the first time in Assam’s Sonitpur district. The joint initiative was billed as a step toward studying and resolving the state’s human-elephant conflict.

According to experts, the exercise is difficult and may have a low success rate. However, in the coming months, the forest department is planning to collar at least five elephants in high-conflict areas. 

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What are radio-collars?

Radio collars are GPS-enabled collars that can transmit location information about elephants. They are approximately 8 kg in weight and are worn around the neck. According to a WWF blog, collaring entails selecting a suitable candidate (usually an adult elephant), administering a sedative, and securing a collar around the elephant’s neck before reviving the animal. 

The team also adds an accelerometer to the collar in order to “understand exactly what an elephant is doing at any given time (running, walking, eating, drinking, etc)”.

How does radio-collaring help?

The objectives are twofold, MK Yadava, Chief Wildlife Warden, Assam told The Indian Express. “Information from the GPS would help us track and study the movement patterns of the herd, across regions and habitats,” he said.

Hiten Baishya of the WWF said, “We will know where they are moving, which corridors they frequent, if the habitat is sufficient, if it needs protection, etc.” This would help in understanding what is driving the conflict.

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“The second objective is incidental,” said Yadava.  “Villagers and forest officials will know about approaching elephants… very much how weather forecasting works. And this would help mitigate conflict incidents,” said veterinarian and elephant expert Kushal Konwar Sharma..

According to experts, the main goal is to study movement patterns over time.

“Gradually, as habitats are shrinking and traditional corridors are not in use anymore, it is imperative to study the range of travels and make an inventory of the new habitats. This is where collaring can come in,” said another forest department official, in request of anonymity.

What is the plan in Assam?

The Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change approved of collaring five elephants in Assam’s Sonitpur and Biswanath in March 2020, subject to a number of conditions, including “minimum trauma” to the elephants during the operation and the submission of regular periodic reports. 

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In the future, the department plans to collar eleven elephants across the landscape, according to Yadava.

“We have eleven elephant herds to be tracked in high human elephant-conflict areas. These include areas in Sonitpur, Golaghat, Nagaon, Goalpara, Udalguri, among others,” he said. 

How bad is human-elephant conflict in Assam?

According to the WWF blog, 761 people and 249 elephants were killed in Assam as a direct result of human-elephant conflict between 2010 and 2019.

“More than 65 per cent of the habitat north of the river has been lost in the past few decades to agriculture and settlements, and conflict between humans and elephants has been steadily increasing ever since,” it said.