Elephants get photo IDs from scientists

NEW YORK, Aug. 16 (UPI) -- Scientists from India and U.S. conservation groups have created a method of identifying individual male Asian elephants to help save the species.

New York's Wildlife Conservation Society and India’s Nature Conservation Foundation created a photographic archive of individual elephants through a “capture-recapture” survey method that identifies individual male elephants, specifically by the shape and size of their tusks, ears and other features. That data can be used to monitor their survival rates and movements.

“Unlike African elephants where both males and females have tusks, only male Asian elephants have valuable tusks, so they are specifically targeted by poachers,” said Wildlife Conservation Society researcher Varun Goswami, the study’s lead author. “In light of this fact, just counting all elephants with generic techniques isn’t enough. Our new method allows specific tracking of male elephant population dynamics, so it is a powerful conservation tool.”

The new method complements traditional survey techniques that can gauge overall elephant densities and sex ratios at population levels but are unable to specifically monitor demographics of male elephants.

The study appears in the journal Animal Conservation.