Country Area - 121,320 km²
Range Area - 5,275 km² (4%)
Protected Range - 0%
Information Quality Index (IQI) - 0.00
CITES Appendix - I
Listing Year - 1994 (year of accession)
Elephants in Eritrea are confined to the small area of Gash-Setit along the Ethiopian border in the southwest of the country. Continued tension between Eritrea and Ethiopia make conservation and research difficult in this area. The elephants are not within a protected area and conflicts with farmers are common (Shoshani et al., 2004).
A study of the genetics of Eritrean elephants indicates that they are savannah elephants, with limited genetic diversity (Brandt et al., 2014).
No elephant action plan has been developed for Eritrea.
There may be 100 to 120 elephants in areas of Eritrea which have not been systematically surveyed. This guess likely represents a minimum number, and actual numbers could be higher than those reported. It applies to 5,275 km², which is the entirety of the estimated known and possible elephant range.
There is very little recent information on the status of Eritrea’s elephant population, with no surveys since 1997 (Litoroh, 1997a, 1997b). Brandt et al. (2014) suggested there may be as many as 120 elephants and this has been entered as an informed guess, replacing the previous guess of 104 (Shoshani, pers. comm., 2006). Since this is a cross-border population with Kafta Sheraro National Park in Ethiopia, there is a possibility that elephants may have been double counted.
No changes have been made to the range map for this report, which is based on an old study of elephant sign and spoor. There appears to be a regular movement pattern, with elephants spending the dry season (October to March) in Eritrea and crossing the border twice every year to spend the wet season in Ethiopia. The mapped elephant range extends to the Sudanese border, but it is believed that elephants do not cross the border (Shoshani et al., 2004).