header: Asian (Indian) Elephant
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line Elephas maximus Linnaeus, 1758

POPULATION

More than 100,000 Asian Elephants may have existed at the start of the present century15, but an estimated 38,000 to 49,000 now remain in the wild.3 Country by country estimates of elephant numbers are given in table 1. It is estimated that a further 16,000 elephants are held in captivity throughout Southeast Asia; there are thought to be over 5,000 domestic elephants in Myanmar alone.8

Table 1. Population estimates for the Asian Elephant - 1996


A table of data


Sources: WWF-International and IUCN's Asian Elephant Specialist Group; 1996.

* Bhutan has a seasonal population of 2,000 to 3,000 - mainly migrant elephants from India.

** India's Project Elephant estimates there are between 17,000 and 24,000 animals.

Warning: almost all figures are very approximate.

Major population: India has by far the largest remaining population of the Asian Elephant (estimated at near 50% of the total). Within India, about half of the elephants are found in the northeastern states, notably Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, and Meghalaya.3


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