Since 2012, August 12 has been celebrated as ‘World Elephant Day’ as a step to call attention to the conservation of the largest animal in the world. The issues faced by Indian and African elephants range from poaching, habitat loss and human-elephant convicts. This has even led to their extinction in some regions.

India is home to the most significant number of Asiatic elephants, accounting for nearly 60% of the jumbo population. However, even after being home to over 32 elephant reserves, the animal population in India is declining, and human activities are blamed for it.

Train hits are the second most significant cause of unnatural elephant deaths in India after electrocution. According to India Times, while 741 elephants were killed after coming into contact with live wires, 186 jumbos lost their lives on railway tracks. 

In 2022, the Tamil Nadu Forest Department sought the aid of AI to conserve and prevent elephant accidents. Tamil Nadu has officially launched the AI surveillance system.

AI surveillance

In Coimbatore Forest Division, it is noted that elephants have strayed about 9,000 times in the past three years, from 2021 to 2023. One of the significant conflict issues in the Coimbatore division was an elephant crossing the railway track in the Madukkarai range and train-hit accidents.

Two railway tracks pass through Solakarai beat and Bolampatti Block-I reserved forests in the Madukkarai range. This forest area shares its boundary with Kerala forests along the river Walayar and is regularly visited by elephants.

Working of the system

The system has 12 high towers fitted with thermal and standard cameras installed at strategic locations along the track in the Bolampatti Block–forests, 500 metres apart from each other, covering all the essential elephant crossing areas. It also gives 150 metres of coverage on either side of the track for early detection of animal movement.

The sensed data is automatically transferred to the control room that processes the data collected from the field in real-time. The front-line staff of the forest department and the technical team are available in the control room on a shift basis to monitor the animal movement and inform the loco pilots of Railways through calls, SMS and alerts.

Other AI systems

This is not the first time an AI-based elephant surveillance system has been introduced in India. This year, Indian Railways introduced AI-based ‘Gajraj’ to prevent elephant deaths on tracks. This surveillance system will be installed on a 700-km route passing through forest areas. Announcing the introduction of the Gajraj system, the Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw remarked that they had identified forest areas in Assam, West Bengal, Odisha, Kerala, Jharkhand and some parts of Chhattisgarh and Tamil Nadu, which are home to elephants.

Similarly, the villagers in the vicinity of Udanti Sitanadi tiger reserve have been granted the opportunity to keep the danger of wild elephant attacks at bay for the past seven months with the help of the Artificial Intelligence-based Chhattisgarh Elephant Tracking and Alert app. The arrival of the app has resulted in zero causality since its launch. 

Once launched as a pilot project, the elephant tracking app has been adopted by many other forest divisions in the state. The AI-integrated app works with an elephant tracker system and human patrolling teams that feed information about the presence and movement of elephant herds in the app.