Vol. 12, Issue 4 (2023)

Author(s):
Madhvee Dhairykar, KP Singh, Shobha Jawre, Aditya Mishra and Randhir Singh

Abstract:
The study of musth condition in elephants is ablaze issues seeking to health management of wild animals. The present study is focused to provide basic information on the musth condition of captive elephants of Madhya Pradesh that may be helpful to elucidate the relationship of musth and seasonal changes on endocrine assessment. The study was conducted in adult, sub-adult, mustha and non-musth elephants of different tiger reserves of Madhya Pradesh. Freshly voided feacal samples were collected and ELISA was performed to proccess the feacal samples for testosterone assessment. We observed the feacal testosterone in musth in winter season (2061.0±276.0 ng/g) followed by summer (1714.0±141.0 ng/g) and lowest in monsoon season (1221.0±119.0 ng/g). The corresponding feacal testosterone concentration revealed in non-musth elephants with higher concentration in winter (1810.0±102.0 ng/g) followed by summer (1324.0±135.0 ng/g) and monsoon (842.6±078.2 ng/g) season. Similarly feacal testosterone concentration was found significantly higher in adult elephants during winter season (1956.0±166.0 ng/g) followed by summer (1551.0±103.0 ng/g) and monsoon (963.5±080.6 ng/g) season as compare to sub-adults, in which significantly higher concentration of testosterone levels observed in summer (651.5±30.2 ng/g) followed by winter (473.9±27.5 ng/g) and monsoon (380.9±32.1 ng/g) season. The higher concentration of testosterone level in winter season revealed in the present study would have been considerable parameters in taking precautionary events in park areas where they are part of wildlife conservation.