Elephants at temple locations in India

1840: Elephants need for timber extraction were secured from various sources within India, including transfers .from the army Commissariat, as well as from the wild as was done by the Bengal government Khedda establishment which was created in Dacca in the early 1840. (Krishnamurthy 2002)

2000: A survey by Project Elephant in 2000 found a total of 3,400 captive elephants: 2,540 privately owned, 190 in temples, 480 with forest departments, almost 150 in zoos and circuses.

2001: India’s first elephant reserve was created in Jharkhand in 2001 under Project Elephant.
2005: India has around 21,300 elephants in 11 elephant ranges in India, according to the last census in 2005. The country also has 4,000 captive elephants, 800 of which are in Kerala. (Cheeran et al)
2007: 27, 700 elephants (census 2007-2008)

2009: A decision was made to relocate elephants from Zoos and circuses to forest elephants camps in more natural surrondings.

2011: According to the 2007 census, there are 27,669 to 27,715 elephants in its various reserves and habitats as against 25,604 in 1993.

2017: According to the country’s first ever synchronised Elephant Census conducted in 2017, there are 27,312 elephants across 23 states. According to the report, released by the Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change on August 12, Karnataka has the highest number of elephants (6,049), followed by Assam (5,719) and Kerala (3,054). In 2012, there were 1,559 elephants in Uttarakhand, and their population rose to 1,839 by 2017.
A maximum of 14,005 tuskers are in Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Kerala, Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra followed by 9,305-9,355 in northeastern regions with Assam having the highest number of 5,281 pachyderms. Eastern states, including Jharkhand, Orissa and Chhattisgarh have 2,633 elephants while in Uttarakhand and Uttar Pradesh their population is 1,726, the data said.

2019: A committee was formed to prepare a National Elephant Action Plan.

2020-10-05: The Union environment ministry has proposed an amendment to the Wildlife Protection Act, 1972 to accord legal status to elephant reserves and corridors on the lines of tiger reserves. With the proposed amendment, the ministry proposes to have a similar legal framework for 30 elephant reserves across 15 states and statutory status for Project Elephant. India is home to about 30,000 elephants, or 60% of the global Asian elephant population.

Human elephant conflict (HEC)

Captive elephants

2000: A survey by Project Elephant in 2000 found a total of 3,400 captive elephants: 2,540 privately owned, 190 in temples, 480 with forest departments, almost 150 in zoos and circuses. According to R. Sukumar, chairman of the Centre for Ecological Sciences at the premier Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore, 3,500 of the estimated 14,000 captive Asian elephants can be found in India.

Many of them in temples and camps where they were used as live tractors for timber logging. Today those elephants are often used as tourist riding elephants in previous teak forests that has been transfered to protected areas.

In 2009, a decision was made to relocate elephants from Zoos and circuses to forest elephants camps in more natural surrondings.

Karnataka

Kerala

Tamil Nadu