Elephant locations in Nepal

53 locations has kept elephants in Nepal
There is presently 180 (48,107) living elephants in locations in Nepal (in this database)

Region:

Nepal is in this database included in asia

Other regions

Wild elephants:

Nepal has about 126 (min. 109, max. 142) wild elephants. Source:Pradhan et al. (2011)

Location holdings:

53 locations has kept 221 elephants in Nepal

(Database tables with collection of elephants further down on the page)

Elephants in locations

180 (48,107) living

41 (15,16) dead

Sex ratio and
Management:

Male

48 / 180

27%

Female

107 / 180

59%

Free contact

151 / 180

84%

Protected contact

0 / 180

No contact

0 / 180

Unknown contact

6 / 180

wild

9 / 180

1914: A total of 17 captive elephants were released into the wild in 1914

1945-1970: 10 wild elephants were captured for taming during 1954-1970.

1973: capture of wild elephants became strictly prohibited.

Wild elephants

Many wild elephants migrate between India and Nepal, where rapidly rising human populations devastated lowland forest herds. Small herds have stabilised in protected reserves.

1996: population was estimated to 50-60 (Santiapillai, IUCN 1996).

2008: 100-170 (Sukumar 2008)

2011: 128 elephants. (Pradhan et al., 2011)

Captive elephants

Gaja or Prasad denotes a male, and Kali denotes a female elephant.

Phanit denotes an official driver and senior keeper, Pachuwa: assistant, and Mahut, 2nd assistant.

The Rana rulers established Hattisars (elephant stables) as part of their big game hunting exploits. Between 1898 and 1970 there were 31 such hattisars for captive elephants, stretching from Jhapa in east Nepal to Kanchanpur in far west Nepal. The last wild elephant was captured near Parsa in 1969

Government elephant stables are called sarkari hattisar.

2011: 236 registered captive elephants. (Locke, 2011)

2014: Nepal has about 150 captive elephants under both government and private individuals distributed in three locations such us the Suklaphanta Wildlife Reserve, Chitwan National Park, Parsa Wildlife Reserve, Koshi Tappu Wildlife Reserve and Bardia National Park.
Surendra Varma, Suparna Ganguly (2011)

Other sources state: There are around 200 captive elephants in Nepal. Around 100 of them are owned by the Department of National Park and Wildlife Conservation and 100 by private institutions
Jeewan Thapa

Bardia

17 elephants have 41 handlers in the Bardia National Park. All the adult female elephants had been bought. Surendra Varma, Suparna Ganguly (2011)

Recommended Citation

Koehl, Dan, Facts about elephants in Nepal. Elephant Encyclopedia, (2021) available online retrieved at https://www.elephant.se/country.php?name=Nepal.
(archived at the Wayback machine)

Sources, among others

Kharel, Fanindra R. The challenge of managing domesticated Asian elephants in Nepal. Available online at http://www.fao.org/3/ad031e/ad031e0e.htm
Locke, Piers (2011). The Ethnography of Captive Elephant Management in Nepal:. Gajah 34 (2011) 32-40 (Journal of the IUCN/SSC Asian Elephant Specialist Group). Available online at https://www.asesg.org/PDFfiles/Gajah/34-32-Locke.pdf
Current status of elephants in Nepal, by Pradhan et al. (2011), Gajah nr 35, 2012. Available online at http://www.asesg.org/gajah35.htm
Varma, S., and Ganguly.S. (2011). Captive Elephants in Bardia National Park,
Nepal, Investigations into Population, Management, Welfare and a Review of Elephant Training by Working Elephant Programme of Asia (WEPA), and WWF Finland at Bardia Hattisar, Elephants in Captivity: CUPA/ ANCF – Occasional Report. No.18. Compassion Unlimited Plus Action (CUPA) and Asian Nature Conservation Foundation (ANCF), Bangalore, India. Available online athttp://www.asiannature.org/sites/default/files/OR%2018%20Captive%20elephants%20in%20Bardia%20National%20Park%20-Nepal.pdf
25 Years of Achievements on Biodiversity Conservation in Nepal, Ministry of Forests and Environment (2018). Available at https://www.cbd.int/api/v2013/documents/BD049A13-5D91-67D5-5B38-90108F6A4D29/attachments/MOFE_IBD_2018_Final%20(1).pdf
Jeewan Thapa, Nepal, http://www.asesg.org/gajah.htm
Vries, de L. (2014) An Elephant is Not a Machine, A Survey into the Welfare of Private Captive Elephants in Sauraha, Chitwan National Park, Animal Nepal, Kathmandu, Nepal. Available online at https://animalnepal.files.wordpress.com/2012/01/report-an-elephant-is-not-a-machine.pdf
https://thehimalayantimes.com/nepal/elephant-mahout-killed-in-tiger-attack-in-chitwan-national-park/
http://news.coinupdate.com/nepal-newly-issued-1000-rupee-banknotes-include-depiction-of-twin-asian-elephants/
http://kathmandupost.ekantipur.com/news/2016-12-30/wild-elephants-cause-menace-in-bardiya.html
http://thehimalayantimes.com/nepal/chitwan-elephant-festival-held-sauraha-december-26/
http://thehimalayantimes.com/nepal/property-worth-rs-1-lakh-destroyed-morang-elephant-attack/
http://www.myrepublica.com/news/11116
http://www.myrepublica.com/portal/index.php?action=news_details&news_id=69146
http://www.shanghaidaily.com/article/article_xinhua.aspx?id=190306
http://www.myrepublica.com/portal/index.php?action=news_details&news_id=46852
http://www.thehimalayantimes.com/fullNews.php?headline=Elephant+attack+claims+one+more+&NewsID=314611

Internal relevant links

The elephant database startpage. Statistics

News about elephants in Nepal (From the sister site Elephant News)

Name

Elephant collection

Type

Place

District

Province

State

Region

Amriti hattisar
Kept totally 2 elephants

53 locations has kept elephants in Nepal There is presently 180 (48,107) living elephants in locations in Nepal (in this database)