Elephant locations in Myanmar

Earlier figures: 3,000-4,000 (Sukumar), earlier 4 000-6 000 (Santiapillai, IUCN 1996)

Most large herds live in forested hills by the borders with Bangladesh, India, China, and Thailand. Wild capture was banned in 1994, but captives are still taken to join 4,500 working elephants in logging camps.

Myanmar has some 5000 wild elephants, and has around 2,800 registered working elephants in the timber industry, belonging to a single government logging agency, the Myanma Timber Enterprise (MTE), and perhaps another 4,000 privately owned domesticated animals.(IUCN’s Species Survival Commission’s Asian Elephant Specialist Group)

Sources, among others

• Current status of elephants in Myanmar, by Leimgruber et al. (2011), Gajah nr 35, 2012. (Journal of the IUCN/SSC Asian Elephant Specialist Group)

Internal relevant links

• The elephant database startpage. Statistics
• News about elephants in Myanmar