New Survey Finds More than 600 Asian Elephants

LiveScience
14 January 2009

A new survey of dung has revealed a population of hundreds of endangered Asian elephants living in a Malaysian park. The animals could be the largest-known set of these pachyderms in Southeast Asia.

The researchers counted dung piles to estimate that there are 631 Asian elephants living in Taman Negara National Park — a 4,343 square kilometer (1,676 square mile) protected area in the center of Peninsular Malaysia. This result confirms the largest-known population of elephants remaining in this part of the world, according to the New York-based Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) and Malaysia’s Department of Wildlife and National Parks (DWNP), which partnered to study the elephants.

Asian elephants are endangered due to habitat loss and poaching; between 30,000 and 50,000 may remain in 13 Asian countries. The Asian elephant is listed on the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species and has seen a drastic reduction in total population across its range as a result of illegal poaching, increased human-wildlife conflict and other threats.

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