Remnant Asian elephant population 477 We suggest that the continued existence of elephants
in Nangunhe, and the six other remaining populations in China, requires a wider landscape and metapopulation approach to species management, which has been shown to work elsewhere (e.g. Flagstad et al., 2012). This should be conducted in concert with continued information gather- ing about the status of these populations, perhaps taking advantage of increasingly accessible technologies. To enact a sufficiently robust and adaptive collective management approach to these populations, more detailed information about social structures and relatedness will be required. As throughout much of Asia, rural communities sur-
roundingNangunhe are dependent on agriculture, potential- ly exacerbating conflict, as seen in other areaswhere ranges of elephants and people overlap significantly (Fernando et al., 2019). As in China, protected areas elsewhere are rarely sufficient to maintain viable populations of Asian elephants (Fernando et al., 2006), making their long-term survival de- pendent on suitability of surrounding wildlands (Leimgruber et al., 2003) and perhaps less optimal habitats (Evans et al., 2018). Efforts to address issues of habitat andhuman disturb- ance within and around reserves should be maintained or enhanced. But it is only by considering these fragmented populations as a single entity, with appropriate linkingman- agement, perhaps akin to a breeding programme, thatwe can hope to ensure the long-term survival of Asian elephants in China and the wider region.
Acknowledgements We thank Mr Li, the Reserve Manager at Nangunhe National Nature Reserve, research assistantsWenwen Liu, Xu Chao and Liu Yu, and the rangers of Nangunhe National Nature Reserve for their support during data collection. This work was funded by Marwell Wildlife, through their joint MRes degree programme in Wildlife Conservation with the University of Southampton, with additional support from the Wildlife Institute at Beijing Forestry University.
Author contributions Project design: LJH, KS, KSHP, PR; field- work: LJH, KS; analysis: LJH, TCG, PR; writing: all authors.
Conflicts of interest None.
Ethical standards This research abided by the Oryx guidelines on ethical standards. All research was approved by Marwell Wildlife’s Ethics Committee and the ethical review processes of the University of Southampton and Beijing Forestry University.
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Oryx, 2021, 55(3), 473–478 © The Author(s), 2020. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of Fauna & Flora International doi:10.1017/S0030605319000504
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