Presented by: Dr. Chittaranjan Dave and Shivam Trivedi

1. Elephant distribution and habitat preferences in the Western Ghats of Karnataka from the available direct and indirect evidences Presented by: Dr.Chittaranjan Dave and Shivam Trivedi

2. Elephants - Elephantidea • Two species • Asian elephant (Elepha maximus) • African elephant (Loxodonta)

3. Asian elephants – An introduction North Eastern states (9000-9500) Foothills of Himalayas (1700) • India has largest population (60%) • 28000 - 30000 (2012 census data) • Range shrunk from 9 to 4.9 million km2 • In India elephant range area - 110000 km2 • Schedule – 1 in WPA and endangered – IUCN • 28+2 elephant reserves East central India (2650) Andaman Islands (40) Western and Eastern Ghats (14000)

4. Asian elephants - Habitat • Dependant on the wetter mixed deciduous and semi-evergreen forest Gray, T. N., & Phan, C. (2011) • Waterbodies important habitat and elephants use habitats close to permanent waterbody Sukumar, R. (1989) and Gaugris, J. Y., & Van Rooyen, M. W. (2010) • High human density area and surrounds also preferred Garcia, C. A., Bhagwat, S. A., Ghazoul, J., Nath, C. D., Nanaya, K. M., Kushalappa, C. G., ... & Vaast, P. (2010)

5. Asian elephants - Threats • Linear developments (roads and rail lines) • Habitat fragmentation/ loss • Infrastructure development • Illegal capture of calves • Ivory poaching Baskaran, N., Varma, S., Sar, C. K., & Sukumar, R. (2011)and Singh, A. P., & Sharma, R. C. (2001)

6. Objectives • Whether elephants are randomly distributed in the area • Which vegetation type is intensively used by elephants? • Whether elephant distribution has any effect of factors like habitation, roads, waterbodies and fire • If yes then which parameter has overriding effect on elephant distribution?

8. Datasets • Secondary data • Elephant location • LULC of study area • Fire data (2008 to 2010) • SRTM data for elevation • Digitized data • Roads • Habitation (villages)

9. Methodology Elephant data – QGIS - Projection MCP – Individual elephant location Buffer – Avg. distance b/w elephants NN method – Avg. dist b/w 2 elephants Load vegetation map Point in polygon function – no. of elephants in each veg. class Generate random points in AOI Clip vegetation map using AOI XY tool – Export both occurrence – Elephant distribution pattern Export/ add geometry tool – Area of each veg. class Field calculator – Density of observed and expected elephant occurrence Statistical analysis – Chi sq. test

10. Methodology Create shapefile – Village location and road map - Projection Fire data (2008, 09, 10) – Merge shapefiles Add waterbodies – Intersect with AOI Load Bing map layer Calculate min. dist. of elephants from fire, road, water and villages Statistical analysis – Paired t-test assuming unequal variance Calculate min. dist. of random points from fire, road, villages and water

16. Elephants response to Terrain Ruggedness Index Elephant location Random points

18. Elephants using different vegetation types

19. How elephants are responding…… Mean distance (m) from elephant location to various parameters

20. Conclusion • Elephants are not randomly distributed and have a pattern of habitat preference • They seem to occur largely in primary moist deciduous and forest plantation • Elephants respond to the presence of waterbody, village and roads but not to fire locations or burnt areas. • Waterbody and terrain ruggedness along with vegetation type explains the current distribution pattern in the study area.

21. Thank You….