Volume 24, Issue 74, July - December, 2023

Damage of trees by forest Elephants (Elephas maximus) in Cauvery Wildlife Sanctuary, Western Ghats, Karnataka: Are they sustainable?

Ganapathy Vanaraj^1♦, Arul Pragasan L²

¹Environmental Ecology Laboratory, Department of Environmental Sciences, Bharathiar University, Coimbatore, India
ORCID: 0000-0002-6513-9930
²Environmental Ecology Laboratory, Department of Environmental Sciences, Bharathiar University, Coimbatore, India
ORCID: 0000-0002-8543-4267

^♦Corresponding author
Environmental Ecology Laboratory, Department of Environmental Sciences, Bharathiar University, Coimbatore, India
ORCID: 0000-0002-6513-9930

ABSTRACT

In the dry deciduous forests along transects for one-month, detailed investigations of indirect observations of forest elephants uprooting and debarking trees were conducted in the Cauvery Wildlife Sanctuary. According to the study, forest elephants generally remove the bark from 6 species of trees and uproot 8 species of trees, with a maximum of 13 trees removed from a deciduous forest and 17 trees destroyed. Compared to other tree species, Boswellia serrata and Hardwickia binnata experienced significantly higher frequencies of debarking and uprooting, respectively, indicating selective usage. Debarking occurred less frequently than uprooting. The mortality rates of trees might vary depending on how much the trees have been debarked and uprooted.

Keywords: Elephants, debarking, uprooting, dry deciduous forests, Cauvery Wildlife Sanctuary

Species, 2023, 24(74), e61s1563

PDF

DOI: https://doi.org/10.54905/disssi.v24i74.e61s1563

Published: 05 July 2023