THE ELEPHANT NATION

by Prajna Chowta

"It is impossible to imagine India without elephants, as long as this enchanting animal species captivates the popular imagination. Nevertheless, the artificial presence of elephants in prominent tourist locales like, Rajasthan's Jaipur, Kerala's Guruvayur, yet another of Bihar's shrouded jewels, Sonepur, mask the precarious situation of this endangered species in general. In fact, recent research indicates that there are all in all 50,000 elephants in entire Asia and specialists doubt if the species will survive in the coming centuries.

Since the 70's, the attention has been focused on the African elephant that continues to subsist even after a severe blow of systematic poaching used to nourish the ivory market. Today, there remain around 400,000 specimens. The trade in ivory has been banned by the CITES and the attention of the public has evolved. The interdiction has altogether been beneficial for the species, but for the perverse effect of augmenting vertiginously the price of ivory in the clandestine market.

Recently, there were erroneous rumours about a supposed increase in the population of elephants in Africa, propagated by contingents interested in the commerce of ivory, to mollify the human conscience. The pressures exerted by countries consuming ivory, with Japan at its head, are calling into question the international accords. Presently, three countries in South Africa have been reauthorized to export ivory. Poaching has revived practically everywhere, including in Asia, refloating wild animal products in the illegal market, which in global importance is only second to drugs.

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THE ART OF ELEPHANT KEEPING

by Prajna Chowta

The old sculptures and carvings of India often represent the Hindu god Indra, "King of the Heavens", with a thunderbolt in his right hand and mounted on an elephant: Airawat. According to mythology, the great, white elephant was churned from the nectar of immortality, in the waters of the Ocean and had not two, but four tusks, just like the Gomphotera, another proboscidean (proboscis=trunk) that appeared on earth about 22 million years ago and vanished only one million years ago. Airawat may be an ancestral cousin of the present elephants, and reminds us that the elephant was at first the mount of gods and kings.

Ever since, riding an elephant has been seen as majestic and even today, most mahouts sustain years of training and hardship for the pride of riding a powerful male elephant with tusks. The upkeep of an elephant is an art in itself and there are no schools. The only way to enter this tradition is to be accepted and adopted by a community of mahouts, then eventually merit the teaching of this secret and ancient knowledge.

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COMPARATIVE DNA ANALYSIS OF THE ASIAN ELEPHANT POPULATIONS

by Régis Debruyne, Ph.D. grade student - Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle - 2003

Though lying at the interface of many thematics of research (of which ecology, ethology, conservation biology and evolution can be cited), Asian elephants and their history remain mysterious. The first genetic analyses of their DNA sequences are recent (Fernando et al. 2000; Hartl et al. 1996) and left many questions unsolved. It is still unclear if the partitioning of populations due to forest fragmentation since the past centuries had notable effects on the genetic richness and diversity of the species. In certain parts of their historical range, elephant populations have dramatically declined in numbers, and it has now become an urgent matter to evaluate the impact of the action of Man.
Here are the preliminary results of the analysis of two mitochondrial markers with the more comprehensive sample to this day of Asian elephants from the Arunachal Pradesh – North Myanmar area.

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