Habitat Selection By Asian Elephant (Elephas Maximus) In Nangunhe Nature Reserve, Yunnan, China

Asian elephants (Elephas maximus) which live in tropical regions of Asia are rare and endangered wild animals. They mainly distribute in Xishuangbanna (Mengla, Jinghong), Jiangcheng and Cangyuan (Nangunhe) in southern Yunnan, China. The number is less than 300. Although the number has increased in recent years, the survival of the status quo is still facing Asian elephant habitat fragmentation, lack of food resources and many other issues.Nangunhe Nature Reserve of Yunnan is now home only as one of the two protected areas in China. Asian elephant scarce number of protected areas has become isolated populations, which in this study provides a more favorable environment for the experiment.In the dry season (March to May) and the rainy season (October to November) 2006, including the Asian elephant species Nangunhe the number of community groups structure, feeding habits, and habitat selection in the field of human conflict, as the investigation of the Asian elephant footprints, droppings, grazing marks a qualitative and quantitative indicators of habitat determination. Two traces of footprints and droppings first use indicators to arrive at the Nangunhe Nature Reserve Asian elephant population and social structure and the intake through the Asian elephant traces of the types of plants draw their intake, location and intensity. 10 environment factors through the collection and analysis of the parameters of the first to explore the Asian elephant on Nangunhe Habitat selection found the right habitat preferences, and the Nangunhe Human-Elephant conflict was discussed. Habitat is for people to take advantage of that - as a key Human-Elephant conflict.In this paper, a lot of statistical analysis of the raw data was collected for processing and analysis. The results are as follows:1. Asian elephant population in Nangunhe Nature Reserve is 14 at least, the Juvenile as 4, the sub-adult as 6 and the adult at least 4. The Asian elephant population in Nangunhe Nature Reserve is mainly sub-adult and adult.2. Asian elephant grazing 48 species of wild plants in Nangunhe Nature Reserve, they mainly take soft parts of plants, such as stems and leaves for food. They like Saurauia funduana, Trevesia palmate, Dendrocalamus tomentosus, Celastrus hookeri, Sarcandra glabra, Calamagrostis assimile, Cassytha filiformis, Bauhinia purpurea, Bauhinia variegate, Phrynium capitatum, Ficus subulata, Ficus pubigera, Ficus hispida, Rubus multibracteatus, Uncaria rhynchophylla, Amomum villosum and Zingiber purpureum best.3. Asian elephan in Nangunhe Nature Reserve prefer 800m following low altitude, slope20°, downhill place Singapore East-West and North-South of the tropical rain forests, rare shrubs and bamboo trees, the most suitable habitat for tree height, stem, height, crown and canopy density have higher requirements. They demonstrate a high degree of choice of habitat.4. As the Human-Elephant conflict is worsening. If not effectively resolved in a reasonable development and the protection of local residents in the area is too small contradictions, as the more intense conflicts will be inevitable. The Asian elephant which living in a few isolated protected areas will be hurt ultimately.