Research Tools

The tools below were developed to facilitate research on Asian elephants and are free to download and use for non-commercial applications.

EARS Elephant ID Database

Please cite this work as: de Silva S, Webber CE, Weerathunga US, Pushpakumara TV, Weerakoon DK, Wittemyer G (2013). Demographic Variables for Wild Asian Elephants Using Longitudinal Observations. PLoS ONE 8(12): e82788. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0082788

Other references: de Silva S (2014). The Elephant Attribute Recording System (EARS):
A Tool for Individual-based Research on Asian Elephants. Gajah (40): 46. [PDF]

EARS (Elephant Attribute Recording System)
Developed by S. de Silva & Ilja Van Braeckel, Uda Walawe Elephant Research Project

EARS is an MS Excel & Access based system for quick-reference of elephant ID photographs.  Users can query the database with a set of check-boxes for key features and return a set of matching ID numbers and photographs.  These results should be used to narrow search to matching individuals, and if necessary to switch to higher-resolution photographs users store separately in order to confirm identity.

Download Database Tool !

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.