Ask ten people how many elephants live in Rajaji and you will get ten numbers, most of them attached to no document at all. The official record is smaller, older and more careful than the numbers circulating with it. This page does one thing: it sets out what the counting records actually say — which exercise, which year, which method, which figure — and then stops. No current total is published here, no trend line is drawn, and no result is assumed for the 2026 exercise.
Sources checked on 1 November 2026: the Uttarakhand Forest Department’s Wild Asiatic Elephant Population Estimation 2015; the Wildlife Institute of India’s DNA-based SAIEE 2021-2025 report of 14 October 2025; and press reports of the 2020 exercise — the counting window announced in June 2020 and the result reported on 29 June 2020.
The series that exists
The state’s 2015 estimation report closes with a division-wise table running from 2001 to 2015. For Rajaji National Park it reads:
- 2001: 453
- 2003: 469
- 2005: 416
- 2007: 418
- 2012: 302 — dung decay estimate, not comparable with the direct-count years
- 2015: 309
On the same page, the statewide totals for those years read 1,507, 1,582, 1,510, 1,346, 1,559 and 1,797. The reserve and state series are printed side by side in the report, which is why every figure above can be quoted with its statewide total attached rather than floating alone. It also shows why a reserve number and a state number are different questions: elephants do not stay inside a notification, so the same exercise records them in whichever division they stand in on the day.
How the 2015 count was made
The 2015 exercise was a direct count run in four sessions over a two-day operation. Field teams recorded 2,348 sightings; double and multiple counts were then removed through checks at beat, section, range, sub-division, division and circle level, using herd composition, individual identity of tuskers, direction of movement, location, time of sighting and photographs. That analysis arrived at 1,797 elephants statewide, of which the report records 309 in Rajaji National Park. The report also notes that, apart from 2012, the state’s estimations in this series were carried out on direct counts.
The same report shows how concentrated that statewide total was: 1,035 elephants in Corbett Tiger Reserve and 160 in Lansdowne Forest Division, the division lying between Corbett and Rajaji. Reading “1,797 in Uttarakhand” as “1,797 spread evenly across the state’s forests” would be a mistake, and reading the Rajaji line as a landscape total would be the same mistake in reverse — the reserve line, the division lines and the statewide line are three separate rows of one table.
Why 2012 does not sit on the same line
The 2012 figure for Rajaji — 302 — was produced by a dung decay estimation conducted by the team from the Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru, and the report flags its confidence intervals as very large. It is a different method from the direct counts either side of it, so this page prints it in the series with that note attached instead of treating every year as one comparable line. The same caution applies in the other direction: a number that looks lower is not automatically fewer elephants if the method changed underneath it.
2020: a state total, and a number that gets misfiled
The next state exercise was counted over three days from 6 to 8 June 2020, synchronised with Uttar Pradesh so that animals moving across the state line would not be counted twice. The result was announced at the 15th State Wildlife Board meeting on 29 June 2020 and reported as 2,026 elephants statewide. Two figures travel with that release on the reserve side: 311 for Rajaji and 352 for the Shivalik Circle. Live Hindustan reported 311 against Rajaji; a later unit-wise table places 352 against the Shivalik Circle, not the reserve, and this page keeps the two apart. The official unit table itself was not located.
2025: a DNA baseline with no reserve breakdown
The Wildlife Institute of India’s DNA-based Synchronous All India Population Estimation of Elephants, covering 2021 to 2025, was released on 14 October 2025 and put Uttarakhand at 1,792 elephants (SE 148; 95% CI 1,502–2,083). Rajaji was one of four sites sampled in the Shivalik Hills and Gangetic Plains landscape — with Corbett, Dudhwa and Lansdowne — but the report publishes state and landscape figures only, so there is no Rajaji number in it to quote. The report is equally clear that the method is new and the figures should be treated as a new baseline rather than read against earlier counts. Its landscape row is worth holding beside the state row: the Shivalik Hills and Gangetic Plains landscape — Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh and Bihar together — is estimated at 2,062 elephants (SE 185), with 1,792 in Uttarakhand and much smaller numbers in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. State, landscape and country are therefore three different scopes published in one document, and none of them is a reserve figure. That is why this page never joins 453 in 2001 to 1,792 in 2025: they are answers from different instruments, counted at different scales.
2026: no published result
Public sources checked on 1 November 2026 carried no published result from a 2026 elephant count for Rajaji, so no 2026 figure appears anywhere on this page. When a result is published it should be read the way the others are: with its method, its date and its scope attached.
What this page will not claim
Four abstentions, stated so that their absence is not mistaken for an oversight. There is no current total for Rajaji here, because none was published. There is no trend — no rising, falling or stable line drawn across methods that the report itself says are not comparable. There is no 2026 result, because none was public. And there is no fixed five-year rhythm to the counting: the state’s own exercises fall in 2001, 2003, 2005, 2007, 2012, 2015 and 2020, the DNA-based all-India estimate was released in 2025, and the next state direct count window was listed for 2026 — a sequence, not a schedule.
Where to read next
Conservation and elephants sets out the wider conservation work around the species; elephant sightings covers what a visitor is likely to see and how to behave around it; wildlife underpasses and crossings reports what the camera traps on the linear infrastructure show; and research and monitoring explains the methods behind the numbers. For the boundaries the counting works inside, read the legal boundary figures; for a separate protected area in the same state with a published species inventory, Asan Conservation Reserve. Sources checked 1 November 2026.
Rajaji elephant census records: questions answered
How many elephants are in Rajaji today?
No current reserve total was published or located as of 1 November 2026, so this page gives none. The most recent reserve-level figures located are 309 from the state’s 2015 direct count and 311 reported from the 2020 state exercise; the 2025 DNA-based estimate is published for Uttarakhand as a whole, not for Rajaji.
What does the official series record for Rajaji?
The division-wise table in the state’s 2015 estimation report reads 453 (2001), 469 (2003), 416 (2005), 418 (2007), 302 (2012) and 309 (2015) for Rajaji, against statewide 1,507, 1,582, 1,510, 1,346, 1,559 and 1,797. The report is here: https://forest.uk.gov.in/uploads/images/news/img_8248293_reportonelephantcencus.pdf
Why do the 2012 and 2015 figures not line up with the earlier ones?
The 2012 figure of 302 came from a dung decay estimation conducted by the Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru, and the report itself flags its confidence intervals as very large, so it is not comparable with the direct-count years. The 2015 exercise was a direct count run over four sessions: 2,348 sightings were recorded and deduplicated to 1,797 elephants statewide, of which 309 were in Rajaji.
What did the 2025 DNA-based estimate give for Uttarakhand?
1,792 elephants, with a standard error of 148 and a 95% confidence interval of 1,502 to 2,083, from the Wildlife Institute of India’s DNA-based Synchronous All India Population Estimation of Elephants released on 14 October 2025. Rajaji was one of four sites sampled in the Shivalik Hills and Gangetic Plains landscape, but the report publishes no Rajaji figure and describes the method as a new baseline. Report: https://wii.gov.in/uploads/media/pdf/announcements/elephant%20estimation_2021-25.pdf
Is the count run every five years?
No fixed interval is supported by the record. The state’s own counts fall in 2001, 2003, 2005, 2007, 2012, 2015 and 2020 — gaps of two, two, two, five, three and five years — with the DNA-based all-India estimate released in 2025 and no public result from a 2026 count located on 1 November 2026.