The graph illustrates the population of Asian elephants in eight Asian countries over 7 years, starting from 1997 years
Overall, it is clear that elephant populations showed a downward trend in most Asian countries, except for Cambodia. In addition, India had by far the largest number of Asian elephants in both years
The figure for elephants in India was the highest throughout the period, with approximately 10000 in 1997, before declining significantly to 7700 in 2004. This was followed by Myanmar, which ranked second, with approximately 5,500 elephants in 1997. This figure then fell slightly to around 5,000 in 2004. At the beginning of the period, Malaysia’s elephant population was the same as Sri Lanka’s, at around 31000. However, by 2004, Sri Lanka’s figure recorded a minor decrease to 30000, which was three times that of Malaysia. A similar trend, the number of Asian elephants in Thailand also witnessed a considerable drop from roughly 4000 to 1700
With regard to remaining countries, Cambodia was the only nation to experience an increase in its elephant population, rising slightly from about 1,200 in 1997 to approximately 1,400 in 2004. By contrast, the figures for Asian elephants in Vn and Laos reduced slightly from 1700 and 1800 to 1600 and 1700, respectively. Finally , China had the lowest population of elephants, with the figure falling by half from approximately 1000 to 500 in 2004