Elephant census in North-East begins

Stating that the census work began from yesterday Kaziranga National Park`s Kohora range officer Attaqur Rehman said the exercise will end on February 26.

The last elephant census was held in 2008 and in the park alone, which is world heritage site and better known for housing the highly endangered one-horned rhinos, there were as many as 1293 elephants.

Rehman said the census figure will significantly more this time because of breeding in large scale among the elephants.

"In Kaziranga alone a lot of elephant calves have been sighted," he said.

The park has been divided in 81 compartments for elephants and the forest staff on enumeration work will be distributed among them, he said.

The Kohora range has provided the maximum number of 23 elephants for the census work which will be carried simultaneously in other ranges of the park as Burapahar, Bagori, Agratoli and Northern Range, he said.

The tiger census inside the park was carried out last month and the figures are yet to be finalised, Rahman said.