Population Survey

The status of elephant populations in Côte d'Ivoire has improved significantly since 2017. Indeed, many actions to protect elephants have been carried out including translocations, GPS collar installations and arrests of elephant poachers and ivory traffickers. In addition, several inventories and studies included elephants. All these actions contributed to a good public awareness of the government's actions in favour of elephants. Human-elephant conflicts are largely immediately reported by populations, making it possible to have a good sense of the areas where elephants are present in the country, sometimes with details of the numbers. Elephant poaching has dropped significantly, with zero (0) cases recorded in 2018, 2020 and 2021. In 2019, only one baby elephant was killed and the poacher arrested and imprisoned. However, elephant numbers outside protected areas remain low. It's usually solitary elephants or small groups between two (02) and six (06) individuals, sometimes herds between 10 and 60 individuals.