{"id":173751,"date":"2025-06-28T12:18:42","date_gmt":"2025-06-28T06:48:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.gkseries.com\/blog\/?p=173751"},"modified":"2025-06-28T12:18:55","modified_gmt":"2025-06-28T06:48:55","slug":"project-elephant-review-census-phase-i-completed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.gkseries.com\/blog\/project-elephant-review-census-phase-i-completed\/","title":{"rendered":"Project Elephant Review: Census Phase-I Completed"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Union Environment Minister Bhupender Yadav presided over the 21st steering committee meeting of Project Elephant in Dehradun, where the progress of Project Elephant was reviewed, notably, the completion of Phase-I in coordinated census of elephant population in the Northeastern states, the mapping of over 3400km of railway lines to ascertain sites of high-risk for elephant-train collisions, the inclusion of sloth bear and gharial to the Species Recovery Programme, suggest a larger strategic push towards better wildlife conservation and mitigating human-wildlife conflict across India.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The 21st steering committee meeting of Project Elephant formally reviewed its progress in Dehradun. Phase-I of the elephant population census in the Northeast as a whole is complete. Several initiatives for protecting elephants such as mapping sensitive railway lines and DNA profiling were reviewed. Sloth bear and gharial have been added to India&#8217;s Species Recovery Programme.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Project Elephant Review<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>\u2022 Meeting Chaired By: Union Environment Minister Bhupender Yadav.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u2022 Title: To review the progress of Project Elephant, a centrally sponsored scheme aimed at conserving elephants.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u2022 Location: Dehradun.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Population Estimation Updates<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u2022 Phase-I of synchronized elephant census is completed in northeastern India.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u2022 16,500+ dung samples were collected for DNA based population estimation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u2022 The last official census (2017) estimated 29,964 elephants in India.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u2022 A 2022-23 unpublished interim report indicated a drop in population estimated at 20%.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Railway Collision Mitigation<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u2022 3,452.4 km of sensitive railway stretches were mapped.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u2022 77 high-risk zones were identified to address elephant fatality.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u2022 Between 2019\u20132024, 73 elephants died via train collision.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Genetic Profiling of Captive Elephants<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>1,911 DNA profiles created across 22 states.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Aims to support long-term monitoring and conservation strategies.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Wildlife Species Recovery<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Sloth bear and gharial recommended for inclusion in Species Recovery Programme.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Focus on restoring dwindling populations and critical habitats.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Union Environment Minister Bhupender Yadav presided over the 21st steering committee meeting of Project Elephant in Dehradun, where the progress of Project Elephant was reviewed, notably, the completion of Phase-I in coordinated census of elephant population in the Northeastern states, the mapping of over 3400km of railway lines to ascertain sites of high-risk for elephant-train [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":419,"featured_media":173763,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5373],"tags":[4916],"offerexpiration":[],"class_list":["post-173751","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-current-affairs-june-2025","tag-national-current-affairs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gkseries.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/173751","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gkseries.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gkseries.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gkseries.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/419"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gkseries.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=173751"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.gkseries.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/173751\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":173764,"href":"https:\/\/www.gkseries.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/173751\/revisions\/173764"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gkseries.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/173763"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gkseries.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=173751"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gkseries.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=173751"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gkseries.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=173751"},{"taxonomy":"offerexpiration","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gkseries.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/offerexpiration?post=173751"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}