Overview
- The Wildlife Institute of India’s SAIEE 2021–25 estimates 22,446 wild elephants nationwide (range 18,255–26,645), a figure widely contrasted with the 2017 count of 27,312 despite official cautions against direct comparison.
- Scientists used a DNA mark–recapture approach, genotyping 4,065 unique elephants from 21,056 dung samples collected across 667,000 km of foot surveys and 319,000 dung plots.
- The Western Ghats remain the largest stronghold with 11,934 elephants, followed by the North Eastern Hills and Brahmaputra floodplains with 6,559, then the Shivalik Hills and Gangetic plains with 2,062.
- Karnataka hosts the most elephants at 6,013, followed by Assam (4,159) and Tamil Nadu (3,136), with Kerala at 2,785 and Uttarakhand at 1,792.
- The report warns of shrinking and fragmented habitats driven by plantations, mining, roads, railways and power lines, and urges corridor protection, mitigation for linear infrastructure and stronger law enforcement.