Dehradun: The Wildlife Institute of India (WII) has completed genetic profiling of 1,862 captive elephants across the country as part of its effort to create a DNA-based national database, researchers said on Wednesday.On the second day of the 18th Internal Research Seminar, project lead Anjali Rawat said, “The WII has received 2,002 biological samples, and individual profiling has been completed for 1,862 captive tuskers.” She added that of the 26 elephant-bearing states, 12 have completed biological sampling while 13 states have done partial sampling. Once the sampling is completed across all states, officials said the data will serve as a national registry to trace ownership, monitor health, and prevent illegal trade of live elephants and their body parts.In a presentation titled ‘Building a comprehensive database for captive Asian elephants (Elephas maximus) in India’, researchers said, “Analyses showed moderate to high polymorphism in all captive data, and genetic clustering results indicated four such clusters, mainly comprising mixed genetic lineages among Indian captive elephants.”WII experts said the project used a tamper-proof forensic sampling kit and an internally developed Android app, Gajah Suchana, to collect biological samples and record details from captive elephants. They added that blood sampling was carried out by the respective forest departments, and the data was uploaded through the app. “The genetic profiling was performed using a standardised forensic microsatellite marker panel. All data is being compiled to generate a comprehensive state-wise captive elephant database,” researchers said.
