Landscape Characteristics Influence Ranging Behavior of Asian Elephants at the Human-wildlands Interface in Myanmar

Abstract

Context Asian elephant numbers are declining across much of their range, driven largely by serious threats from land use change resulting in habitat loss and fragmentation. Myanmar, holding critical range for the species, is undergoing major developments due to recent sociopolitical changes. To effectively manage and conserve the remaining populations of endangered elephants in the country, it is crucial to understand their ranging behavior.Objectives Our objectives were to (1) quantify dry season range sizes of elephants in Myanmar and assess how they vary with different configurations of agriculture and natural vegetation; and (2) evaluate how percentage of agriculture within dry core range of elephants relates to their daily distance travelled.Methods We estimated dry season, wet season, and annual range sizes with autocorrelated kernel density estimator (AKDE) using a continuous-time movement modeling (ctmm) framework and reported the 95% and 50% AKDE and 95% Minimum Convex Polygon (MCP) range sizes. In a multiple regression framework, we developed candidate model sets to explain the variation in AKDE range sizes during the better sampled dry season when human-elephant interactions are the most likely to occur.Results Elephant dry season ranges were highly variable averaging 792 km2 and 184.2 km2 for the 95% and 50% AKDE home ranges, respectively. We found both the shape and spatial configuration of agriculture and natural vegetation patches within an individual elephant’s home range play a significant role in determining the size of its range. We also found that elephants are moving more (larger energy expenditure) in ranges with higher percentages of agricultural area.Conclusion Our results provide baseline information for advancing future land use planning that takes into account space-use requirements for elephants. Failing to do so may seriously further endangered declining elephant populations in Myanmar and across the species’ range.

Supporting Zoo Asian Elephant (Elephas maximus) Welfare and Herd Dynamics with a More Complex and Expanded Habitat

“…Wild African elephants are reported to walk 3 to 12 km per day under normal environmental conditions [ 39 , 40 , 41 , 95 ], and can range up to 27 km per day or more for landscape-level movements such as seasonal migrations or dispersal [ 96 ] or under extreme conditions such as in water scarce regions of Namibia [ 31 , 97 , 98 ]. By contrast, wild Asian elephants in Myanmar were shown to walk from 1.3 to 7.3 km per day [ 99 ]; in Sri Lanka, shorter daily walking distances were found in elephant groups with nursing calves (1 to 3.5 km) or juveniles (3 to 8.5 km) [ 62 ], as cited in [ 38 ]. Another measurement of movement is distance displaced, which measures a straight-line change in location as a result of walking any pattern.…”

“…Food and water availability have been shown to influence walking distance in free-ranging Asian elephants [ 99 , 100 ], and thus one of the challenges in a zoo setting is to encourage walking given ample food provisions. Holdgate et al [ 37 ] found individual differences in walking distances associated with demographic, social, housing, and feeding-related variables.…”