New Delhi/dehradun, Oct. 15 -- There are 22,446 elephants in the country, according to All-India Synchronous Elephant Estimation (SAIEE) 2025 conducted by Wildlife Institute of India, almost 17% lower than the 2017 estimate, though experts said the two were not comparable. The census was conducted by the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change in coordination with the Wildlife Institute of India and state forest departments and released at the WII's annual research seminar in Dehradun on Tuesday The range provided is between 18,255 and 26,645 with Karnataka (6013) having the highest population as per the report. The Western Ghats is home to the highest number of elephants. 11,934, followed by the north-eastern hills and Brahmaputra floodplains with 6,559.The Shivalik Hills and Gangetic plains support 2,062 elephants, while Central India and the Eastern Ghats together have 1,891. The estimate of 22,466 elephants is lower than 27,000 elephants estimated in Synchronised elephant population estimation India 2017, but officials said a new DNA based sampling method has been adopted this time and hence the numbers are not comparable with the previous estimation. "I haven't been through this report. But there was a lot of concern among the scientific community whether this should be a pilot or broad based for the entire country. We will have to go through the entire methodology to say whether this indicates a declining trend," a wildlife biologist who works on elephants said, asking not to be named. The 2017 estimation was based on the direct count method, he added. The nationwide estimate uses DNA based mark-recapture for the first time in India. DNA-based mark-recapture is a non-invasive wildlife monitoring technique that estimates population size and demographics without physically catching animals. It uses unique genetic profiles (genotypes) derived from DNA found in environmental samples like hair or faeces....