World Elephant Day 2019:

Current Theme, History,Facts & myth about Elephant  Its Significance with respect to Dalma wildlife

 

Compiled & shared by-DR RAJESH KR. SINGH, JAMSHEDPUR &

Mr. R P. SINGH, FOREST RANGE OFFICER,  DALMA WILDLIFE SANCTUARY , JAMSHEDPUR

Today is the world elephant day.World Elephant Day is celebrated on 12 August every year to raise awareness about the urgent plight of African and Asian elephants and finding out the ways to protect them.

World Elephant Day is to inform people and organisations about the threat that an elephant faces. Although, elephants are loved by most of the generations but they are also on the verge of extinction.

The reason behind the poor condition of elephants is not only poaching and habitat loss but also due to negligence of the people about the threats that elephant a magnificent animal faces. One of these threats may be the elephant rides isn’t it!

 

 

 

World Elephant Day: History——

 

On 12 August, 2012, the first international Elephant Day was celebrated. Since then, it is observed annually and this day is dedicated to the huge animal protection and preservation. Michael Clark and Patricia Sima, two filmmakers from Canada and Sivaporn Dardarananda, Secretary General of the Elephant Reintroduction Foundation in Thailand decided to celebrate World’s Elephant Day in 2011.

This day make people to understand the need for better protection for wild animals, elephants and also to improve the illegal poaching and trade of ivory, better treatment of captive elephants. Do you know that now more than 65 wildlife organisations and several people around the world celebrate this day?

Let us tell you that in the IUCN Red List of threatened species, African elephants are listed Vulnerable and Asian elephants as Endangered.

 

 

 

 

Threats that Elephants basically face

 

– Poaching

– Human-elephant conflict

– Mistreatment in captivity

– Do not ride on elephant

Above mentioned threats are faced by African and Asian Elephants

 

Solutions for the threats are:

 

 

– Together work towards better protection for wild animals.

– Improve enforcement policies to prevent illegal poaching a

– Improve illegal trade of ivory

– Conserve the habitats of elephants.

– Provide better treatment for captive elephants

– When it is appropriate then reintroduces captive elephants in to the natural habitat.

– Protect sanctuaries is one of the goals of the several elephant conservation organisations and focus around the world.

 

How World Elephant Day is celebrated?—–

 

 

 

The best way is to educate yourself and others about this magnificent animal that is elephant. It is necessary to raise issues that these animals’ faces and social media is the best platform for this. People watches documentary on elephants as this make you realise about the wildlife and about the animals that they faces which can be an eye-opener. People donate on this day to a foundation dedicated to protecting elephants from poachers or relocating them to locations better suited their needs.

To stop killing of elephants MIKE (Monitoring the Illegal Killing of Elephants) programme was established by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) by Resolution 10.10 adopted at the tenth Conference of the Parties in 1997. Around 28 sites participating in the MIKE programme in Asia which are distributed around 13 countries. Let us tell you that India has 10 sites which are followed by two sites each in Cambodia, Indonesia, Lao PDR, Malaysia, Myanmar and Thailand, and one site each in Bangladesh, Bhutan, China, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Vietnam.

 

Facts about African Elephant——–

 

– According to WWF approximately population of African elephants is 415,000 in the wild.

– The scientific name of the Elelphant is Loxodonta africana.

– Shoulder height is 11 feet and weight is 6 tonns.

– Length is 19-24 feet.

– There are two species of African elephants – the Savanna or bush elephant and the Forest elephant. Do you know that Savanna elephants are larger than forest elephants and their tusks curve outwards?

– Forest elephants are darker and their tusks are straighter and point downward.

So, now you may have come to know that World Elephant Day is celebrated on 12 August every year to raise awareness about the issues that elephants faces in the wild and to find out the ways to protect them. Therefore, it is imperative to protect elephants as they are critical for maintaining the biodiversity of these rain forests.

 

Facts about Elephants——

 

We know them as the largest living land animal on Earth. In a country like India they hold a significant place in the Hindu mythology. Elephants are mentioned in the Vedas and in the epics as ancient as the Mahabharata and the Ramayana and in the other ancient texts of Gajastram and Hastiayurveda. From Airavata; the holy white elephant to Lord Ganesha; the elephant-headed God (perhaps the most loved one) elephants form an integral part of Indian cultures, religions and folklore.

August 12 is dedicated to this pachyderm as World Elephant Day and below are 12 interesting must read facts about this colossal yet endearing species.

 

Different Species – Elephants belong to the family Eliphantidae. There are three species of Elephants out which one is Asian (Elephas maximus) and other two are African; African bush elephant (Loxodanta Africana) and African forest elephant (Loxodanta cyclotis).

 

Know the Difference – There are some basic differences that help us recognize the different species. The most obvious ones are:

1. Asian Elephants are slightly smaller and have smaller rounded ears as compared to African Elephants.
2. Asian Elephants have convex back while African elephants have saddle-shaped back.

Listening Power – These proboscideans (trunked creatures) can hear one another’s trumpeting calls up to 5-6 kilometers away.

 

Listening through Feet – These pachyderms are gifted with the ability to communicate through their feet. Elephant’s foot stomp produces vibrations in the ground that are picked up as the sub-sonic resounds by other elephants through their feet enabling them to communicate seismically.

 

Matriarchal Society – Elephant groups are led by a matriarch as adult males are solitary wanderers and connect with the group only during mating. Matriarch is the older female who leads the family of adult and sub adult females, calves and young males.

 

Wisdom Tool – Elephants possess an incredible memory and with a highly developed brain they are considered to be very intelligent creatures.

Kith and Kin – It is known that when the food resources are scarce, they divide into nuclear families of a mother and her calves whereas when the food resources are in abundance the nuclear families rejoin their kith and kin to form large family groups.

 

Water Lovers – Elephants are very good swimmers and love to play in water and mud.

 

Social Being – You tend to get frighten due to its giant size but this colossal mammal is highly sensitive as well as caring for their calves. Elephants are known to exhibit grief, compassion and joy and use their trunk to greet each other.

 

Tusk and without Tusk – Males with poor development of tusks are known in India as Makhna and males with developed tusks are known as Dauntela.

 

Guessing Age – To know the approximate age of an elephant, look at its ears. As they age, the amount of ear fold increases inwardly in depth. Also, older elephants have more sunken cheeks and foreheads.

 

Supports Ecosystem – Elephants form an integral part of our ecosystem.

 

Intelligent, emotional and intriguing, undoubtedly elephants are keystone species playing key role in maintaining the biodiversity. Man-elephant conflict and poaching for their tusks continue to be the biggest threats to their existence. Given what we know about the elephants, their role in ecosystem and what they continue to teach us about animal intelligence, it becomes important than ever to raise awareness about their conservation.

 72 Incredible Elephant Facts That Will Make You Want To Save Them

Elephant poaching is out of control. Here are some reasons to care.

1. African elephants are the largest land mammals on the planet.
2. One of the largest known elephants was Jumbo, whose name is thought to be derived from the Swahili word for ‘boss’ or ‘chief.’ He is the reason we now use the word ‘jumbo’ to mean ‘huge.’
3. Elephant brains weigh 5 kg, much more than the brain of any other land animal.
4. Their brains have more complex folds than all animals except whales, which is thought to be a major factor in making them some of the most intelligent animals on Earth.
5. Elephants have a more developed hippocampus, a brain region responsible for emotion and spatial awareness, than any other animal.
6. Studies indicate that they are superior to humans in keeping track of multiple objects in 3D space.
7. Elephants commonly show grief, humor, compassion, cooperation, self-awareness, tool use, playfulness, and excellent learning abilities.
8. An elephant in Korea surprised its zoo keepers by independently learning to mimic the commands they gave it, successfully learning eight words and their context.
9. There are many reports of elephants showing altruism toward other species, such as rescuing trapped dogs at considerable cost to themselves.
10. No matter what the movies taught you, elephants don’t like peanuts.
11. Elephants herds are matriarchal.
12. Female elephants live in groups of about 15 animals, all related and led by the oldest in the group. She’ll decide where and when they move and rest, day to day and season to season.
13. An elephant herd is considered one of the most closely knit societies of any animal, and a female will only leave it if she dies or is captured by humans.
14. Bull elephants court females by using rituals involving various affectionate gestures and nuzzles.
15. Female African elephants undergo the longest pregnancy — 22 months.
16. Elephants have been known to induce labour by self-medicating with certain plants.
17. Elephant calfs weighs more than 100 kg at birth.
18. Baby elephants are initially blind and some take to sucking their trunk for comfort in the same way that humans suck their thumbs.
19. Mothers will select several babysitters to care for the calf so that she has time to eat enough to produce sufficient milk for it.
20. Males will leave the herd as they become adolescent, around the age of 12, and live in temporary “bachelor herds” until they are mature enough to live alone.
21. Male elephants are normally solitary and move from herd to herd.
22. Homosexual behavior in elephants is common and well-documented.
23. Asian elephants don’t run.
24. Elephants can recognize themselves in a mirror.
25. Elephants can get sunburned, and protect themselves by throwing sand on their backs and their head.
26. To protect their young from the sun, adult elephants will douse them in sand and stand over the little ones as they sleep.
27. Elephants are very social, frequently touching and caressing one another and entwining their trunks.
28. Elephants demonstrate concern for members of their families and take care of weak or injured members of the herd.
29. Elephants grieve for their dead.
30. Even herds that come across an unknown lone elephant who has died will show it similar respects.
31. There are reported cases of elephants burying dead humans.
32. Elephants seem to be fascinated with the tusks and bones of dead elephants, fondling and examining them.
33. The rumour that they carry bones to secret “elephant burial grounds,” however, is a myth.
34. An adult elephant needs to drink around 210 litres of water a day.
35. It’s true that elephants aren’t fans of tiny critters.
36. African elephants avoid eating a type of acacia tree that is home to ants because they don’t want the ants to get inside their trunks, which are full of sensitive nerve endings.
37. Elephants sleep standing up.
38. Elephants communicate within their herds or between herds many kilometers away by stamping their feet and making sounds too low for human ears to perceive.
39. Both female and male African elephants have tusks, but only male Asian elephants have tusks.
40. An elephant can use its tusks to dig for ground water.
41. They evolved large, thin ears to help regulate their body temperature and keep cool.
42. The elephant’s trunk is able to sense the size, shape, and temperature of an object.
43. An elephant uses its trunk to lift food and suck up water, then pour it into its mouth.
44. An elephant’s trunk can grow to be about 2 metres long and can weigh up to 140 kg.
45. Scientists believe that an elephant’s trunk is made up of 100,000 muscles.
46. Elephants can swim – they use their trunk to breathe like a snorkel in deep water..
47. Elephants are herbivores and can spend up to 16 hours days collecting leaves, twigs, bamboo, and roots.
48. The elephant’s closest living relative is the rock hyrax, a small furry mammal that lives in rocky landscapes across sub-Saharan Africa and along the coast of the Arabian peninsula.
49. Between 12,000–15,000 of the world’s elephants are living in captivity.
50. Approximately 30% of the entire Asian elephant population is currently in captivity.
51. The largest single population of captive elephants is in India — about 3,400 individuals.
52. There are about 1,000 captive African elephants worldwide, and most of them are housed outside Africa, approximately 40% in Europe.
53. There are around 197 elephants per morning in European circuses(123 Asian and 74 African).
54. Bans on wild animals in circuses have been adopted in Bolivia, Austria, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Hungary, Poland, Peru, Portugal, Sweden, Singapore, Costa Rica, India, and Israel.
55. More than 30 localities in Canada and some counties in the United States have banned shows with wild animals.
56. A ban on wild animals in circuses in the U.K. will come into effect in December 2015.
57. From 1994 to 2005, at least 31 circus elephants died prematurely.
58. Since 1990, more than 60 people have been killed and more than 130 others seriously injured by captive elephants.
59. In 1903 a female Asian elephant named Topsy was killed by electrocution. She had been smuggled into the United States while young and went through years of physical and mental abuse as a circus elephant before killing her trainer.
60. In 1962, a male Indian elephant named Tusko was injected with 297 mg of LSD by researchers from the University of Oklahoma — more than 1,000 times the dose typical of human recreational use. He died one hour and forty minutes later.
61. Elephants have no natural predators. However, lions will sometimes prey on young or weak elephants in the wild.
62. The main risk to elephants is from humans through poaching and changes to their habitat.
63. The street value of elephant ivory is now greater than gold, running to tens of thousands of pounds per tusk.
64. More than 20,000 African elephants were slaughtered in 2013, according to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora.
65. The Kenya Wildlife Service has documented the killing of 97 elephants so far this year.
66. But according to Dr. Paula Kahumbu, who leads the Hands Off Our Elephants campaign, elephant poaching in Kenya is at least 10 times the official figure.
67. Poachers in Kenya have enjoyed lenient sentences and few have been successfully prosecuted.
68. A study by WildlifeDirect found that over the past five years just 4% of those convicted of wildlife crimes were sent to jail.
69. New legislation passed earlier this year that should lead to higher conviction rates and tougher sentences.
70. The global ivory trade was worth an estimated $1 billion over the past decade, with 80% of ivory from illegally killed elephants.
71. The total global elephant population is currently estimated at 650,000, and they are very much in danger of extinction.
72. Organisations working to protect elephants include Born Free, Save the Elephants, Space for Giants, and Tsavo Trust(The trust protects the land where Satao lived, and they need all the help they can get. Please consider donating.)

 

 

 

In this post I am giving you a brief description of the India’s famous wildlife sanctuary  DALMA WILDLIFE SANCTUARY which is also known as Paradise for Elephant.

 

Established in 1976 by Sanjay Gandhi, Dalma Wildlife Sanctuary is spread across an area of 195 square kilometre in the city of Jamshedpur in Jharkhand. The sanctuary lies in the catchment area of Subarnarekha River offering a great habitat for wildlife to exist. Exploring the pristine ecosystem surrounded with dense forests, rare wildlife, and lush hills can make for a relaxing vacation.

If you’re forever enamoured by the idea of giant elephants amidst dense forests, then this is the place for you. You could easily run amok them and have a great time capturing them on camera; Dalma gives you the scope of being free around wildlife. There’s a lot of other rare species like the big-eared pachyderms, leopard, barking deer, deer, sloth bear, and giant squirrel that you will find here.

 

One could also go for these nature trails where you explore the wilderness on foot. Unlike most sanctuaries where you are provided with a safari; at Dalma, you can get up close and personal with the flora and fauna of the region just by walking around. It’s quite safe because you’re constantly under the supervision of a forest guide. These trails are operational only in the mornings, therefore try not to miss them. There’s also an ancient Lord Shiva Temple inside the sanctuary which holds great importance among the locals. People from all walks of life visit the temple to offer prayers on the occasion of Mahashivratri. After the shrine, you can also visit the Dalma Mai Shrine after whom this sanctuary has been named.

If you’re a hardcore wildlife enthusiast and want information related to all the flora and fauna of the region, head to the Museum- cum-Interpretation Centre at Makula Kocha. It has been established to promote the biological and zoological research of the vegetation and species of the sanctuary.

Try and stay at the bamboo huts in Makula Kocha. It’ll be an experience to be in the lap of nature, surrounded by an abundance of flora.  There are single bamboo huts as well as plush cottages that you could choose from.

The best time to visit is between October and March because the temperature (26 degree celsius) is just right to explore the sanctuary during the day. At night, the temperature drops to 11 degree celsius; nice and chilly to huddle around with a hot drink in hand.

 

 

Where is Dalma Wildlife Sanctuary

Dalma Wildlife Sanctuary is located 10 km from the city of Jamshedpur in the Indian state of Jharkhand. It was inaugurated by Sanjay Gandhi in 1975. It is a notable wildlife sanctuary and contains significant population of Indian Elephants.

When to go?

The best time to visit is from October to June.

Accomodation-

Accommodation conveniences are available in the forest guest house. Bookings can be made from the Forest Range Office, near Payal Talkies, Mango, Jamshedpur. An application needs to be submitted and accommodation can be availed at nominal charges.

Dalma can boast of having well maintained forest rest houses to provide a pleasant & comfortable stay for the tourists. The forest rest house at Pindrabera is located at such a place that from its roof and terraces one can have a bird’s eye view of distant points including steel city of Jamshedpur. There are rest houses and Bamboo hut at Makulakocha as well.

WHY to go DALMA WILDLIFE SANCTUARY?

Dalma is known as paradise for elephant. The flagship species elephant count goes to 100 in number in the peak of summer where the waterholes deep inside the sanctuary quench their thirst. Recently brought four elephants are also one of the attraction points for the tourists. In past there used to be good number of deers in the sanctuary. With the decline in number of deers an enclosure was established with an object to breed in captivity and then release the excess deers into wild to regain the past glory. The deer enclosures at Makulakocha have spotted deers and sambhars. The enclosure is located in such a site that the spotted deers and sambhars sustain with the feelingof natural habitat.

Beside elephants there are Indian giant squirrel, sloth bear, barking deer, wild boar, porcupine, mouse deer, pangolin and mongooses in the sanctuary. Commonly seen birds in the sanctuary are the falcons, golden oriole, Indian tree pie, paradise fly catchers, grey hornbills, Indian peafowl, different varieties of king fishers, herons, egrets, mynas, pigeons, racket tailed drongo, magpie robins etc.

There are small hideouts within the sanctuary to view the wild animals in their natural habitat.The sanctuary is an ideal spot for trekkers. Another attraction here is a temple dedicated to Lord Shiva, where a large number of devotees flock during the festival of Shivratri. The number of tourists visiting the sanctuary has significantly dropped in recent years due to the Naxalite infestation of the area surrounding the sanctuary and also due to the volatile situation in the region.

HOW TO REACH?

1.Personal Bike ride to the top of the hill.

2. Personal car (avoid during shivratri puja)
3. Reserved Auto Ricksaw from Sakchi or Mango area of Jamshedpur.

4.You can also trekk to the top of the hill.