Breeding programme for Captive Asian Elephants

Breeding programme for Captive Asian Elephants
Dr.T.P.Sethumadhavan
India maintains nearly 50 percent of the world’s wild Asian elephants (Elephas maximus), 30,000 in number. In India, elephants are considered a major part of culture and religion. However, it remains an endangered species throughout its range because of poaching, loss of habitat and incidences of human elephant conflict. In some parts of India where the poaching of male tuskers is particularly high, sex ratios have been severely skewed to as high as 1:90 (males:females). In order to reduce the threats to elephants, the govt. of India is implementing Project Elephant – a major initiative to conserve elephants in the country. Measures undertaken by this project are protection and improvement of habitats and corridors for elephants, reducing human elephant conflict, creating awareness among people and addressing various issues related to conservation.
In India more than 60 percent of captive elephants are maintained in southern states. However, captive elephants have not received due attention from conservationists. Even Project Elephant concentrates only on wild elephants, and there is a tendency among conservationists and wildlife experts to neglect captive/domesticated elephants as just another category of livestock. Thus, conservationists and policy makers have in the past neglected captive elephants in favour of wild ones. Recently there has been a reappraisal of the role of captive elephants in the overall conservation of elephants. In India domestication of elephants is now considered a potential conservation and management tool, which is complementary to that of wild elephants. The problem is – reproductive rates among captive elephant populations in India are very low. Lack of adequate veterinary care and laboratory support to assess reproductive status are major constraints in providing adequate elephant health care and in developing successful breeding programs.
Kerala, the southern State of the country, is considered the “elephant state” of India with about 800 captive elephants. Here elephants are used mostly for festivals and processions and rarely in timber mills. One temple attached to Guruvayoor Devaswom holds more than 67 elephants.

In India (including in Kerala) captive breeding has not been a high priority. Elephant births have been rare and usually due to accidental breedings. Last year in October, an International Workshop on Captive Elephant Management held at Thrissur, Kerala, and this year in September a Symposium on Human-Elephant Relationships and Conflicts held at Colombo, Sri Lanka emphasized the need for captive breeding and regular monitoring of endocrine status of Asian elephants to enhance reproduction. Awareness about such conservation strategies and issues are comparatively less emphasized in India, however. As a result, little research on monitoring endocrine status and studying basic reproductive physiology has been done.
In order to implement a breeding program for captive elephants, more expertise is needed for Indian scientists.