Monitoring Of Elephants Research Articles

Elephants and algorithms: a review of the current and future role of AI in elephant monitoring.

Artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) present revolutionary opportunities to enhance our understanding of animal behaviour and conservation strategies. Using elephants, a crucial species in Africa and Asia's protected areas, as our focal point, we delve into the role of AI and ML in their conservation. Given the increasing amounts of data gathered from a variety of sensors like cameras, microphones, geophones, drones and satellites, the challenge lies in managing and interpreting this vast data. New AI and ML techniques offer solutions to streamline this process, helping us extract vital information that might otherwise be overlooked. This paper focuses on the different AI-driven monitoring methods and their potential for improving elephant conservation. Collaborative efforts between AI experts and ecological researchers are essential in leveraging these innovative technologies for enhanced wildlife conservation, setting a precedent for numerous other species.

Design and Development of a Fog-Assisted Elephant Corridor over a Railway Track

Elephants are one of the largest animals on earth and are found in forests, grasslands and savannahs in the tropical and subtropical regions of Asia and Africa. A country like India, especially the northeastern region, is covered by deep forests and is home to many elephants. Railroads are an effective and inexpensive means of transporting goods and passengers in this region. Due to poor visibility in the forests, collisions between trains and elephants are increasing day by day. In the last ten years, more than 190 elephants died due to train accidents. The most effective solution to this collision problem is to stop the train immediately. To address this sensitive issue, a solution is needed to detect and monitor elephants near railroad tracks and analyze data from the camera trap near the intersection of elephant corridors and railroad tracks. In this paper, we have developed a fog computing-based framework that not only detects and monitors the elephants but also improves the latency, network utilization and execution time. The fog-enabled elephant monitoring system informs the train control system of the existence of elephants in the corridor and a warning light LED flashes near the train tracks. This system is deployed and simulated in the iFogSim simulator and shows improvements in latency, network utilization, and execution time compared to cloud-based infrastructures.

Developing a user-centred system for long-term elephant monitoring

Originally envisaged as a three-year project, the Amboseli Elephant Research Project (AERP) has proved a labour of love for a small, dedicated team who have followed the life trajectories of more than 3,900 individual elephants over five decades. AERP’s unique knowledge base is derived from tracking individually recognized animals in a small well-protected population studied continuously since 1972, providing an important baseline for a free-ranging elephant population with an intact age structure. This dataset forms the basis of our demographic analyses (Moss 2001; Lee et al. 2013), and through training, research, books and films has contributed to global understanding of elephant reproductive biology and behaviour; musth: (Poole and Moss 1981; Poole 1987: Poole 1989; Hollister-Smith et al. 2007); oestrus: (Moss 1983); mothering and grandmothering: (Lee et al. 2016; Lee et al. 2022), elephant cognition: (McComb et al. 2001; Bates et al. 2008; McComb et al. 2014) and communication: (Poole et al. 1988; McComb et al. 2000; McComb et al. 2003). How can we now, after a half century of effort, make our data accessible and of continued use to the global elephant community? To try to answer this demand, AERP has moved beyond a simple relational database into a data management system that allows users to add, map, inspect, edit, and extract data. Here we share some of the key concepts that drove this process and outline our hopes for making elements of the system available to other projects that may benefit from similar capacities.

An Analysis of the Factors Contributing to Elephant Population Fluctuations in SWRA using Ranger-based Knowledge and Perceptions

This study aimed at examining local ranger-based knowledge and perceptions on explaining contributing factors to variations on elephant fluctuations seasonally and over a long period in Sengwa Wildlife Research Area following a massive decline of elephants by nearly 76% after the 2014 National Aerial Survey done in Sebungwe Region, Zimbabwe. Data were collected between 1st and 20th August 2020 using a purposive sampling approach administered to questionnaire to resident SWRA rangers (n = 25). Our results show that rangers considered a combination of factors that may have affected elephant fluctuations in SWRA including poaching, migration, settlement and impact of climate change. However, our results suggest that rangers had inadequate knowledge about elephant migration destinations. Moreover, mixed perceptions about the impact of trophy hunting, poaching and climate change-induced factors were recorded from the participants. The results contribute to a growing understanding of poaching, climate change, trophy hunting and human settlement on elephant behaviour. The study recommends improvement in elephant monitoring through investments in elephant collars and radio tracking to better understand elephant daily and seasonal dispersal movements.

The return of the elephants: How two groups of dispersing elephants attracted the attention of billions and what can we learn from their behavior

The return of the elephants: How two groups of dispersing elephants attracted the attention of billions and what can we learn from their behavior

Activity of Forest Elephant (Loxodonta cyclotis) In Two Clearings within Ogooué Leketi National Park, Congo Brazzaville

In order to increase our understanding of forest elephant (Loxodonta cyclotis) vocal communication, this study examined the spatial and temporal activity of elephants from two forest clearings (Bissoloko and Madjouama). To obtain data on the visit of elephant in the clearings daily, it requires considerable human and financial resources for conservation programs observations. However, we deployed autonomous acoustic recorders “SM2” to assess elephants’ activities both day and night time from 2013 to 2014. Elephant visitation in these clearings depends on certain factors as, seasons, years, and preferences of elephant to use one or more site. As a results this study found that (i) elephants visited Bissoloko clearing more than Madjouama, although these two clearings were within 5 km distant one another; (ii) Eighty six per cent of elephant calls occurred at night, and large changes in call density at night often were not reflected in similar changes during the day; (iii) there were significant differences in the calls made at night; (iv) elephants were found to be visiting clearings more often in the wet season than in the dry season; (v) visitation was significantly higher in 2013 than in 2014. Elephants used randomly one or other clearings. This empirical study suggests that African forest elephant has two vocal communication practices. Spatially separated females engage in rumble exchanges that help them to coordinate their movements and to bring them together. Both male and female elephants produce "mate attraction" rumbles to inform the opposite sex of their reproductive status. These results show the value of acoustic monitoring as a tool for better understanding of forest elephant behaviour. We suggest that passive acoustic monitoring should be incorporated into forest elephant monitoring programs to complement direct observations at forest clearings.

Automated detection of low-frequency rumbles of forest elephants: A critical tool for their conservation.

African forest elephants (Loxodonta cyclotis) occupy large ranges in dense tropical forests and often use far-reaching vocal signals to coordinate social behavior. Elephant populations in Central Africa are in crisis, having declined by more than 60% in the last decade. Methods currently used to monitor these populations are expensive and time-intensive, though acoustic monitoring technology may offer an effective alternative if signals of interest can be efficiently extracted from the sound stream. This paper proposes an automated elephant call detection algorithm that was tested on nearly 4000 h of field recordings collected from five forest clearings in Central Africa, including sites both inside protected areas and in logging concessions. Recordings were obtained in different seasons, years, and under diverse weather conditions. The detector achieved an 83.2% true positive rate when the false positive rate is 5.5% (approximately 20 false positives per hour). These results suggest that this algorithm can enable analysis of long-term recording datasets or facilitate near-real-time monitoring of elephants in a wide range of settings and conditions.

Long-Term Monitoring of Dzanga Bai Forest Elephants: Forest Clearing Use Patterns

Individual identification of the relatively cryptic forest elephant (Loxodonta cyclotis) at forest clearings currently provides the highest quality monitoring data on this ecologically important but increasingly threatened species. Here we present baseline data from the first 20 years of an individually based study of this species, conducted at the Dzanga Clearing, Central African Republic. A total of 3,128 elephants were identified over the 20-year study (1,244 adults; 675 females, 569 males). It took approximately four years for the majority of elephants visiting the clearing to be identified, but new elephants entered the clearing every year of the study. The study population was relatively stable, varying from 1,668 to 1,864 individuals (including juveniles and infants), with increasingly fewer males than females over time. The age-class distribution for females remained qualitatively unchanged between 1995 and 2010, while the proportion of adult males decreased from 20% to 10%, likely reflecting increased mortality. Visitation patterns by individuals were highly variable, with some elephants visiting monthly while others were ephemeral users with visits separated by multiple years. The number of individuals in the clearing at any time varied between 40 and 100 individuals, and there was little evidence of a seasonal pattern in this variation. The number of elephants entering the clearing together (defined here as a social group) averaged 1.49 (range 1–12) for males and 2.67 (range 1–14) for females. This collation of 20 years of intensive forest elephant monitoring provides the first detailed, long term look at the ecology of bai visitation for this species, offering insight to the ecological significance and motivation for bai use, social behavior, and threats to forest elephants. We discuss likely drivers (rainfall, compression, illegal killing, etc.) influencing bai visitation rates. This study provides the baseline for future demographic and behavioral studies of this population.

Opening a larger window onto forest elephant ecology

AbstractAfrican forest elephants (Loxodonta cyclotis) can be observed reliably in forest clearings but are difficult to observe directly in their otherwise forested habitat. To obtain data on population demography and activity cycles, conservation programmes commit considerable human and financial resources to observations at clearings. However, individual elephants spend only a tiny proportion of their annual activity budget in a particular clearing, and there may be demographic differences between daytime and nighttime populations. Using acoustic monitoring tools to assess elephant numbers continuously for long time periods at multiple clearings, we show that daytime‐only observations are likely to be biased. In this study, (i) 79% of all elephant visitation occurred at night, (ii) sometimes large changes in nocturnal elephant numbers occurred without proportional changes in daytime elephant numbers, and (iii) there were indications that a different demographic of the population visits clearings at night compared with the day. These results suggest that acoustic monitoring should be incorporated into forest elephant monitoring programmes to augment direct observation and that more study is needed to explicitly identify any biases inherent in daytime‐only observation.

A STATISTICAL FRAMEWORK FOR MONITORING FOREST ELEPHANTS

. All indications point to a rapid decline of forest elephants in Central Africa. But traditional forest elephant monitoring methods do not allow accurate estimation of the rate of decline, precise attribution of causes of the decline, or efficient assessment of management or policy actions designed to stem the decline. This paper describes a new, more powerful statistical framework for monitoring forest elephant trends. The framework combines a Markov model of temporal trends witha likelihood-based description of spatial trends in elephant distribution. Using small survey segments, rather than total population size, as the unit of analysis allows the modeling of covariates that strongly influence density, but vary on a relatively small spatial scale. Modeling of spatial gradients in elephant distribution not only improves the power of temporal trend tests, but also provides muchmore insight into the causes of temporal trends than does an analysis of abundance alone. Likelihood-based model selection procedures are advocated as a superior alternative to the classic hypothesis testing format. Data from an ongoing survey of the Gamba Complex of protected areas in Gabon are used to demonstrate how model selection procedures based on Akaike's information criterion can be implemented. Non-parametric analysis of spatial autocorrelation is suggested as a means for detecting trends that are not associated with known covariates and for the identification of previously unknown covariates. Suggestions on other priorities for implementing forest elephant monitoring are discussed.

Fragmentation of Asia's remaining wildlands: implications for Asian elephant conservation

AbstractHabitat loss and fragmentation are main causes for Asian elephant population declines. We mapped wildlands ‐ large, unfragmented and undeveloped areas ‐ asking: (1) Where are the largest wildlands that constitute elephant habitats? (2) What proportion of these wildlands is protected? (3) What is their potential for elephant conservation? Our study demonstrates that wildlands constitute only 51% of the Asian elephant range. Myanmar has the largest wildland (∼170,000 km2), followed by Thailand and India. In Principal Components Analysis (PCA), the first two components explained 73% of the variation in fragmentation among ranges. We identified three fragmentation clusters from the PCA. Cluster A contains large ranges with unfragmented wildlands; cluster B includes ranges with well‐developed transportation networks and large human populations; and cluster C contains ranges with severely fragmented wildlands. In cluster A, we identified four ranges with elephant populations >1000 animals: ARYO, MYUC, BNMH and BITE. Together with ranges that support >1000 elephants in cluster B, these A ranges have great potential for long‐term elephant conservation. We propose that fragmentation clusters and population size can be used to identify different elephant monitoring and management zones.

Estimates of forest elephant abundance: projecting the relationship between precision and effort

Summary A key element of African elephant conservation is monitoring how different forms of human activity influence elephant distribution and abundance. Information on human–elephant interaction is critical for guiding conservation action at all levels, from very local management interventions, through national protected area planning, to international policy initiatives such as the ban on ivory trade. However, methods for monitoring elephant numbers often produce rather poor estimate precision. Therefore, a major challenge for elephant monitoring programmes at all levels is to allocate survey effort efficiently: the greatest possible statistical power to detect the effects of particular forms of human activity must be obtained from limited survey effort.This study examined an approach to survey design based on the assumption that the precision of an abundance estimate is directly proportional to sampling effort. Field data from three sites in Central Africa were used to evaluate the potential of this approach for projecting how much effort will be necessary to survey and monitor forest elephants.Variance in elephant dung pile encounter rate was proportional to sampling effort, but variance was also influenced by mean encounter rate. The relationship between variance and mean encounter rate followed a power law more closely than the linear model suggested by many previous authors. The linear model tended to substantially underestimate the effort level required for areas with high encounter rates. A bootstrapping exercise suggested that modelling the precision–effort relationship across strata should produce more accurate projections than estimating a distinct precision–effort relationship for each stratum.Our results suggest that the survey design framework examined could substantially improve the statistical power of forest elephant monitoring programmes, although the use of a power law (rather than linear) model seems preferable. A similar approach should be appropriate for designing savanna elephant monitoring programmes and for addressing other issues, including rates of hunting and human elephant conflict. Furthermore, the parameter estimates reported in this study should be useful in designing elephant survey and monitoring programmes at other forested sites in Central Africa.

Reproductive endocrine monitoring of elephants: An essential tool for assisting captive management

Considerable information now is available about the basic reproductive biology of elephants, especially females. However, as important as this knowledge is, it no longer is enough to simply compile it into a database. The potential exists for using endocrine monitoring techniques to solve real problems. This review summarizes our current knowledge of elephant endocrinology and offers suggestions on how to use the technology to maximize reproductive potential. The estrous cycle can be monitored through the analysis of serum progestogens, primarily 5α-reduced compounds, and consists of an 8- to 12-week luteal phase and a 4- to 6-week inter-luteal period. Proof of ovarian cyclicity currently is mandatory before Species Survival Plan breeding recommendations are approved. However, because many adult females are not cycling normally, the reproductive monitoring of all cows throughout their life span is now encouraged. Complete endocrine evaluations in conjunction with ultrasound examinations and behavioral assessments are needed to identify causes of reproductive failure and develop mitigating treatments. Progestogen analyses also are effective for monitoring pregnancy, but only if longitudinal samples are collected. Alternatively, pregnancy can be diagnosed in occasional samples using serum prolactin or possibly relaxin measurements after 20 weeks of gestation. Parturition can be predicted on the basis of the rapid decrease in progestogens that occurs about 2–5 days before birth. An updated model of ovarian dynamics during the estrous cycle suggests that two waves of follicular development occur 3 weeks apart during the non-luteal phase, possibly under the control of follicle-stimulating hormone. Each follicular wave culminates in a luteinizing hormone (LH) surge, with the second surge inducing ovulation and corpus luteum formation. The functional significance of the first, anovulatory LH surge is under investigation, but from a practical perspective it can be used to schedule breeding (by artificial insemination or natural mating) to coincide with the ovulatory LH surge. Less is known about the reproductive biology of bulls, aside from the fact that musth is associated with dramatic changes in androgen secretion. Studies are needed to determine whether poor libido and inadequate semen quality observed in some mature elephants are due to testicular steroidogenic dysfunction. When blood samples cannot be collected for routine hormone analysis, gonadal activity can be monitored non-invasively through the measurement of excreted steroid metabolites (males: androgens; females: estrogens, progestogens) in urine and feces. Lastly, suggestions for future research priorities are provided. Zoo Biol 19:347–367, 2000. © 2000 Wiley-Liss, Inc.

What It Will Take to Monitor Forest Elephant Populations

Abstract: The decision by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) to condition a limited sale of ivory on the status of elephant poaching has brought into sharp focus the technical, organizational, and financial challenges inherent in setting up a continent‐wide monitoring program. The task will be particularly arduous in central Africa, where forest elephant populations are difficult to monitor and the infrastructure necessary for population monitoring is lacking. The magnitude of effort that will be necessary is illustrated by an elephant survey done in the Gamba Complex, a network of protected areas on the southwest coast of Gabon. Implementing the survey required a large‐scale program for training Gabonese nationals in field survey and analysis methods necessary for elephant monitoring. Field work carried out during the training program suggests that a combination of reconnaissance and line transects can produce statistically valid population estimates for a substantially lower effort than line transects alone. We illustrate statistical frameworks for comparing the efficiency of alternative sampling methods, and we analyze the sensitivity of current survey methods, which can detect abundance changes on the order of 15%, given fairly high effort levels. Although these training and methodological results are encouraging, they are just small steps in a complex and ongoing process. We argue that this process has many parallels with what needs to be done if the international conservation community is to respond to the challenge set for it by the 1997 CITES meeting. There must be a concerted effort focused both on improving survey methods and on developing the human resources and on‐the‐ground infrastructure necessary to implement these methods.

A long-term study on the dynamics of the elephant ( Elephas maximus) population in Ruhuna National Park, Sri Lanka

The population of elephant ( Elephas maximus) in Block I of Ruhuna National Park, Sri Lanka was monitored through visual observations between 1960 and 1991. This represents perhaps the longest study of monitoring a single population of elephants in the world. Elephants were observed opportunistically for 23 years during the study period. In 166 days, a total of 579 observations were made during which 2246 sightings of elephants were recorded. There were 354 bull groupings and 225 family units or herds. The adults (males and females) make up 65% of the population. In general the proportions of the adult tuskers, makhnas (tuskless males), adult females, subadults and young have not changed much over the study period. But the proportion of tuskers among adult bulls shows wide fluctuation. Tuskers make up about 9.1% of the bulls in the park. The observed adult male:adult female ratio is 1:1.86. Almost all the solitary animals that were observed were males. Solitary bulls were encountered throughout each year, but their numbers reached a peak following the rains. The largest bull group consisted of seven animals. The most frequently encountered herd consisted of 3–10 animals. About 80% of the herds showed no association with adult males. The diurnal activity patterns of the bull groups and family units were largely similar but the bull groups were slightly more active in the mornings compared to the family units. The herds may be less tolerant of vehicles and people than the males and hence shift their activity towards the late evening hours. Although breeding may go on throughout the year, the calving intensity was found to vary. 85% of the young were seen during the rainy season. Despite its small size (140 km 2), Block I of Ruhuna National Park is one of the best areas that support viable elephant populations. This shows that in poor countries, simple measures such as protection and monitoring of elephants are easier, cheaper, and more likely to be successful than high-tech methods such as translocations or reintroductions which are difficult, expensive and likely to fail. ©