Project Elephant (PE) is a wildlife conservation project initiated in India in February 1992 with the aim to provide financial and technical support to major elephant bearing States in the country for protection of elephants, their habitats and corridors.

Though this centrally sponsored scheme began with a thrust on elephant conservation in the various elephant populous bio-geographical regions of the country, it expanded its view to adopt a more comprehensive approach to the subsidiary issues of human-elephant conflict and welfare of domesticated elephants.

The Project demarcated 13 States to implement its efforts to maintaining a viable Elephant population in their natural habitat. The states being:

	Andhra pradesh
	Arunachal Pradesh
	Assam
	Jharkhand
	Karnataka
	Kerala
	Meghalaya
	Nagaland
	Orissa
	Tamil Nadu
	Uttranchal
	Uttar Pradesh
	West Bengal

For a better understanding of the main activities of the Project, they are listed below:

	Ecologically restoring the existing natural habitats and migratory routes of elephants
	Developing of scientific methods for conservation of elephant habitats and viable population of Wild Asiatic elephants in India and ensuring their continuance through planned management.
	Promoting measures for mitigating man-elephant conflict in crucial habitats and as far as possible negating the undue pressures of human and domestic stock activities in crucial elephant habitats
	Ensuring strictest adherence to “No poaching” acts formulated for Wild elephants and minimizing cases of unnatural deaths of elephants due to human or other interference.
	Research on Elephant management related issues.
	Conducting Public education and awareness programmes.
	Providing for veterinary care of the wild elephants.
	Undertaking Eco-development as a major step to fortify their efforts at wildlife conservation.

In order to boost the natural reproduction cycle of Elephants, Project Elephant has done extensive research on elephant reproduction and successfully devised an artificial insemination (AI) program for the same. It was only after a comprehensive and not to mention an extensive study of elephant physiology and behavior did the first attempts with AI using frozen semen took place in 2002, with the aim to generate a long-term, self-sustaining population in human care and in situ conservation.

The goals of Project Elephant include:

	Producing conceptions using frozen semen.
	Developing sperm cell sexing protocols and producing conceptions.
	Studying various aspects of elephant behavior in a captive setting.
	Participating in the Elephant Awareness Visitor Presentation Survey.
	Investigating female and male response to anovulatory and ovulatory urine.

The increase in the funding of the Project Elephant from 23 crores in the 8th Plan to 60 crores in the 10th Plan amply testifies for the success rate of the Project. Today there are 25 Elephant Reserves (ERs) extending over about 58,000 sq kms.

Indian Holiday.com offers detailed information about the inception, aim and future course of action of Project Elephant as devised by the World Conservation Union. For further information or queries, kindly fill the online form given below.