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112 elephant, 23 tiger deaths in 2025-26: Parl data
New Delhi: India recorded 112 elephant deaths and 23 tiger deaths in 2025-26 due to poaching, electrocution and train accidents, according to the latest data shared in the parliament
New Delhi: India recorded 112 elephant deaths and 23 tiger deaths in 2025-26 due to poaching, electrocution and train accidents, according to the latest data shared in the parliament.
In 2025-26, 80 elephant were electrocutied; 22 were killed in train accidents and 10 died in poaching incidents, making it a total of 112 deaths. In comparison, there were 104 electrocution deaths in 2024-25; 12 through train accidents and 18 poaching deaths – a total of 134. In 2023-24, there were a total of 121 elephant deaths due to these cause with the maximum (94) related to electrocution.
The data was tabled in the Lok Sabha on June 20, in a reply by Minister of State, Environment, Kirti Vardhan Singh.
According to the data, there were 23 deaths due to the three causes in 2025, 32 in 2024 and 57 in 2023. Of the 23 deaths last year 17 were in poaching incidents (confirmed cases till date, as per investigation), two in train accidents and four electrocutions.
The ministry said several steps were being taken by both the government and the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) for the conservation and protection of tigers.
“This includes providing funding assistance to states under the Centrally Sponsored Scheme Project Tiger and Elephant for habitat protection, infrastructure, anti-poaching operations, deployment of Tiger Protection Forces (TPF/STPF),” the minister said in the reply.
Experts, however, said the number of deaths due to these factors remain fairly high, pointing towards increasing fragmentation and loss of habitat.
Prof. Raman Sukumar, an elephant expert, who is also the National Science Chair at the Indian Institute of Science, said while three years was a short period for a trend, however, the number of elephant deaths due train accidents and electrocution is still fairly high.
“Elephants are increasingly coming out of their original forested ranges into agricultural and other human-dominated areas, making them more susceptible to accidental deaths. Their original habitats are undergoing change from factors such as the rapid spread of invasive plants (Lantana camara is one such example in southern India) thereby reducing the availability of natural forage such as grasses, mining pressures (central India), and increased fragmentation (northeast India),” he said.
The ministry also said that India has an estimated 3,682 tigers as per thee All India Tiger Estimation done in 2022. It added that there were 22,446 elephants in the country, citing “Status of Elephants in India: DNABased Synchronous All India Population Estimation of Elephants (SAIEE)” report.
