Conservation Values of Asian Elephants: People's Appreciation

The Asian elephant Elephas maximus has been considered as one of the most reminiscent cultural symbols of the people of Asia and it also stands for the need to safeguard suffi cient natural forest areas; however the survival of the species has been in danger due to a number of conservation issues (AERCC 1998). Asian elephants are confi ned to 13 Asian range countries, of which, India holds over 50% of the global population – approximately 24,000–28,000 distributed across 18 states of the country (Menon 2003; Sukumar 2003). Northeast India holds around 30% of the country’s total elephant population (Bist 2002b). Within this north-eastern countryside, the state of Assam is known as the key conservation region of Asian elephants (Stracy 1963; Gee 1964; Santiapillai & Jackson 1990; Choudhury 1991,1997; Bist 2002b) with an elephant population of about 5200 as assessed in the year 2005 (Talukdar et al. 2006).