Indian Elephants

Common Name: Indian elephant

Scientific Name: Elephas maximus indicus

Location: South Asia

Indian elephant (Elephas maximus bengalensis) females and young Corbett National Park, India

Distributed from India, Nepal, Bhutan and western Myanmar, the Indian elephant plays an important ecological and cultural role in Asia.

More on the Ecology of the Indian Elephant

Physical Description

The skin is dark grey to brown, with patches of pink on the forehead, the ears, the base of the trunk and the chest.

Diet

More than two thirds of the day may be spent feeding on grasses, but large amounts of tree bark, roots, leaves and small stems are also eaten. Cultivated crops such as bananas, rice and sugarcane are favored foods. Since they need to drink at least once a day, the species are always close to a source of fresh water. Usually, they do not feed for more than a few days in a given location. Adults eat approximately 330 pounds per day.

WWF Works to:

WWF's elephant work in South Asia includes limiting human impacts on elephant populations in the Western Terai, India, while activities carried out in some of the priority landscapes in the South Asia like Nilgiris-Eastern Ghats, Terai Arc and North Bank landscapes aim to prevent further habitat loss and, most importantly, lower anger levels against elephants.

In the Terai Arc Landscape, which encompasses parts of western Nepal and eastern India, WWF and its partners are restoring degraded biological corridors so that large animals like elephants can access their migratory routes without disturbing human habitations. The long-term goal is to reconnect 12 protected areas and encourage community-based action to mitigate human-elephant conflict.

Also in India, WWF supports human-elephant conflict mitigation, biodiversity conservation, and awareness-building among local communities in two other elephant habitats in the eastern Himalayas, the North Bank Landscape and the Kaziranga Karbi-Anglong Landscape, and in the Nilgiris Eastern Ghats Landscape in South India.

At the borders of Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam, WWF is training, equipping, and supporting local staff to patrol protected areas and assess elephant distribution and numbers. The focus for WWF in Laos is protecting elephants in protected areas and reducing human elephant conflict. In Vietnam, WWF works in Cat Tien National Park on elephant and rhino conservation.