Mortality Patterns of Asian Elephants in Odisha, Eastern India.

We examined data on elephant mortality from the year 2001 to 2018. Elephant deaths greatly increased over the last eight years. From 2001–2018, 1061 elephants died in 943 incidents with an average of 58.94% deaths per year. Elephant deaths peaked in winter and mostly occurred outside protected areas in human dominated landscapes. Disease was the major cause of death, followed by accidents and unknown reasons. The highest mortality was in the age class 21–40 years while 58.15% of deaths were of individuals less than 20 years. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]