Asian elephant (Elaphus maximus)

Mohamed bin Zayed Species project number 222530290

Applying new conservation technologies as an advanced monitoring system for human-elephant conflict mitigation in Southern Vietnam

This grant contributes to a larger initiative to study a population of Asian elephants in Dong Nai, Vietnam, including: 

1. gather all location records of elephant presence (dung, foot prints, direct observations, camera trap images) 

2. run a Species Distribution Model to identify overall elephant range in the area

3. conduct drone survey within the forest edges and grasslands of the predicted distribution range and when contacted by locals about elephants

4. collaborate with protected area forest rangers and SVW anti-poaching teams to get alerts when new prints or dung are spotted on patrol, and do rapid drone surveys at the location

5. Identify core area(s) of elephant activity for future monitoring

6. Identify all entry/exit points from the forests proximal to local farms that are often raided

7. Identify “viewing area” that is safe for ecotourism viewing of the elephants

8. establish accurate counts of population size, and age/sex classes of individuals.

9. train rangers to use the drones and where to survey for simplified, low-resource, long-term population monitoring.

10. set AI cameras in key locations, where they will detect elephants emerging from the forests and going toward to village areas, then send real-time alerts to local people and rangers. This early warning system will both continually monitor local elephants and act as a measure to enforce coexistance and HEC mitigation measures.