Man In Front Of A Elephant During Bath Time, Kochi, India, 2008 (photo)

The WWF considers the Indian Elephant widely distributed, but classified as an endangered species since 1996 by the Asian Elephant Specialist Group, the current population of the Indian Elephant is in the range of 20,000-25,000; Indian Elephants are threatened by several factors such as ivory tusks traffic, loss of habitat due to human pressure on forested areas and human conflict; the isolated wild elephants in individual wildlife sanctuaries are also endangered by loss of habitat; wild elephants often enter villages and kill people, like in Orissa, recently, Indian authorities have decided to stop keeping elephants in zoos, and transferred them to national parks