Through real-time AI tracking, fearless anti-snare patrols, and gentle Kumki guardians, Chhattisgarh’s Forest Department and local communities are weaving a story of peace and protection for an estimated 450 wild elephants.

RAIPUR, August 12 — Chhattisgarh is tossing out the old rulebook to keep its estimated 450 wild elephants alive, swapping reactive crowd control for predictive AI and grueling foot patrols. The stakes across the state’s central and northern corridors have never been higher. Since 2001, human-elephant friction in the region has cost the lives of nearly 1,000 villagers and over 260 elephants. Forest Minister Kedar Kashyap has ordered a total operational shift to stop the bleeding. The forest department isn’t waiting for a terrified herd to trample a farm before responding anymore. They’ve rolled out the Gaj Sanket tracking app to map exactly where the animals are moving in real time.  

When a herd shifts trajectory toward a vulnerable hamlet, the software pings village panchayats directly.

So local leaders can secure their grain stores and get people indoors long before the first branch snaps. The state’s elephants currently range across 16 districts, heavily favoring the dense forests of Surguja and Bilaspur. They rely on nine identified migration corridors to move between feeding grounds. The new digital alerts replace the old, chaotic method of forming local mobs to chase the animals away with fire and noise a tactic that almost always ended in tragedy.  

But a push notification on a smartphone won’t save a young calf from a hidden steel wire.

Poachers still seed the forest floor with metal snares, waiting for an animal to step in the wrong place. These traps aren’t always meant for elephants, but they’ll cripple a five-ton giant just as easily as a wild boar. Once an elephant is anchored and exhausted by the snare, poachers can move in for the kill without a fight.  

How do you secure thousands of acres of thick brush where thermal drones are useless?

You send in people willing to walk the lines. The department launched exhaustive anti-snare walks across nine highly volatile forest divisions this year. They brought in local conservation groups like the Global Joy Foundation and Nova Nature to help comb the dirt. During recent sweeps in Kawardha, these joint patrols tore illegal traps out of the ground, seized specialized poaching gear, and arrested the operators. They’re systematically dismantling the local supply chains that profit off the slaughter.

And when the foot patrols aren’t enough, the department deploys its biological heavyweights.

Deep inside the Lemru and Sarguja-Jashpur reserves, trained Kumki elephants walk the same ancient trails as the wild herds. These massive, domesticated animals act as a living buffer between the forest and the farms. If a wild matriarch wanders too close to a human settlement, the Kumkis and their handlers step in to physically block the path. They use their sheer bulk and calm demeanor to de-escalate the tension, guiding the wild tuskers back into the deep timber before anyone gets hurt.

The department knows technology and Kumki squads only work if the humans running them know what they’re doing. Officials recently pulled 78 mid-level forest rangers from the field for intensive, modernized training. They learned advanced drone surveillance, veterinary triage, and crowd-dispersion tactics that don’t escalate the panic. They’re building an infrastructure of survival for an elephant population that demands vast, uninterrupted landscapes to thrive.

Predators and poachers adapt, but they can’t outrun a forest that watches them back.