{"id":370,"date":"2019-02-22T16:51:06","date_gmt":"2019-02-22T16:51:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.science4wildlife.com\/?p=370"},"modified":"2020-04-06T15:36:17","modified_gmt":"2020-04-06T15:36:17","slug":"scientists-map-sri-lankan-elephants-for-first-time","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.science4wildlife.com\/index.php\/2019\/02\/22\/scientists-map-sri-lankan-elephants-for-first-time\/","title":{"rendered":"Scientists map Sri Lankan elephants for first time"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"768\" src=\"https:\/\/www.science4wildlife.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/Sri_Lanka_Photo084-1024x768.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-371\"\/><figcaption>TRUNK AND DISORDERLY: Sri Lankan elephants often come into conflict with humans. \u00a9 Wikimedia<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Scientists in Sri Lanka have produced the first-ever evidence-based distribution map for Asian elephants.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The\nresearchers carried out interview surveys across the country and found that the\ncharismatic mammals occur over around 60 per cent of the island nation, a much\nhigher proportion than elsewhere in its 13-country range.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Earlier distribution models either covered smaller areas within individual countries, or were based on \u201cguesswork and conjecture\u201d, according to the authors of the study <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cambridge.org\/core\/services\/aop-cambridge-core\/content\/view\/025C8042CF17AD9CA11F54C03D034239\/S0030605318001254a.pdf\/first_countrywide_survey_of_the_endangered_asian_elephant_towards_better_conservation_and_management_in_sri_lanka.pdf\">published in the journal Oryx earlier this month<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It\nrepresents the first time a country-wide, evidence-based distribution map has\nbeen produced for the species.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Elephant\nexpert Prithiviraj Fernando from Sri Lanka\u2019s Centre for Conservation and\nResearch and colleagues divided the island into 2,750 grid cells, each\nmeasuring 25 square-kilometres, and conducted interviews with three residents\nper cell.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">If cells\nwere uninhabited elephant presence was estimated based on the four surrounding\ncells.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This data\nwas then combined with GPS tracking data gathered from 2004-2018, and the team\nfound that most of Sri Lanka\u2019s elephants live outside protected areas, leading\nto well-publicised conflicts with humans.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The authors\nsuggest that under these circumstances, trying to confine the animals to\ncertain areas is not a sound conservation strategy, and instead recommend a \u201chuman-elephant\ncoexistence model\u201d to reduce conflict by installing electric fences and other\nbarriers around villages and farmland.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cThis\napproach has been incorporated into the National Policy for Elephant\nConservation and Management in Sri Lanka but is yet to be fully implemented\u201d,\nthey add in the paper.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The Sri\nLankan population of Asian elephant, <em>Elephas\nmaximus<\/em>, is often recognised as the subspecies <em>E. m. maximus<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It is\ncurrently considered endangered by the IUCN and is threatened particularly by\nhabitat loss, with the most recent population census indicating there are less\nthan 6,000 wild individuals remaining.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Scientists in Sri Lanka have produced the first-ever evidence-based distribution map for Asian elephants. The researchers carried out interview surveys across the country and found that the charismatic mammals occur over around 60 per cent of the island nation, a much higher proportion than elsewhere in its 13-country range. Earlier distribution models either covered smaller [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":371,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-370","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"rttpg_featured_image_url":{"full":["https:\/\/www.science4wildlife.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/Sri_Lanka_Photo084-e1550854298986.jpg",1000,750,false],"landscape":["https:\/\/www.science4wildlife.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/Sri_Lanka_Photo084-e1550854298986.jpg",1000,750,false],"portraits":["https:\/\/www.science4wildlife.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/Sri_Lanka_Photo084-e1550854298986.jpg",1000,750,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/www.science4wildlife.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/Sri_Lanka_Photo084-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/www.science4wildlife.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/Sri_Lanka_Photo084-300x225.jpg",300,225,true],"large":["https:\/\/www.science4wildlife.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/Sri_Lanka_Photo084-1024x768.jpg",610,458,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/www.science4wildlife.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/Sri_Lanka_Photo084-e1550854298986.jpg",1000,750,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/www.science4wildlife.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/Sri_Lanka_Photo084-e1550854298986.jpg",1000,750,false],"post-thumbnail":["https:\/\/www.science4wildlife.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/Sri_Lanka_Photo084-680x330.jpg",680,330,true],"evolve-post-thumbnail":["https:\/\/www.science4wildlife.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/Sri_Lanka_Photo084-680x330.jpg",680,330,true],"evolve-slider-thumbnail":["https:\/\/www.science4wildlife.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/Sri_Lanka_Photo084-400x300.jpg",400,300,true],"evolve-tabs-img":["https:\/\/www.science4wildlife.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/Sri_Lanka_Photo084-50x50.jpg",50,50,true],"evolve-testimonial-avatar":["https:\/\/www.science4wildlife.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/Sri_Lanka_Photo084-80x80.jpg",80,80,true]},"rttpg_author":{"display_name":"Matt Ford","author_link":"https:\/\/www.science4wildlife.com\/index.php\/author\/matt\/"},"rttpg_comment":0,"rttpg_category":"<a href=\"https:\/\/www.science4wildlife.com\/index.php\/category\/news\/\" rel=\"category tag\">News<\/a>","rttpg_excerpt":"Scientists in Sri Lanka have produced the first-ever evidence-based distribution map for Asian elephants. The researchers carried out interview surveys across the country and found that the charismatic mammals occur over around 60 per cent of the island nation, a much higher proportion than elsewhere in its 13-country range. Earlier distribution models either covered smaller&hellip;","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.science4wildlife.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/370","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.science4wildlife.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.science4wildlife.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.science4wildlife.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.science4wildlife.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=370"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.science4wildlife.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/370\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":426,"href":"https:\/\/www.science4wildlife.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/370\/revisions\/426"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.science4wildlife.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/371"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.science4wildlife.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=370"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.science4wildlife.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=370"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.science4wildlife.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=370"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}