The World's Largest Asian Elephant Population Lives Here
The Nilgiri Biosphere Reserve, spanning Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, and Kerala, holds an estimated 6,000 to 8,000 Asian elephants, the single largest population of the species anywhere on earth. That number sounds like a conservation success. The reality is more complicated. Asian elephants (Elephas maximus) are not territorial in the way tigers or leopards are. They are landscape animals. A single adult bull can range across 600 to 1,000 square kilometres in a season. Herds follow centuries-old routes between water sources, salt licks, and seasonal grazing grounds. Remove the route, and you don't just inconvenience the herd, you cut off gene flow between sub-populations, accelerate inbreeding, and push animals into human settlements where conflict, and death, follow.
