In early April 2026, a rogue elephant held responsible for the deaths of two people was captured near Jecko village in Lohit district, Arunachal Pradesh — and the operation that brought it in was anything but routine.

A twelve-member expert team travelled from Karnataka specifically for the mission, led by Dr Ramesha H, with support from the Wildlife Institute of India. The team deployed AI-enabled thermal drones alongside traditional eyewitness tracking to locate and safely immobilise the animal. It was one of several recent operations in the district, where a second rogue elephant — involved in separate fatalities — was also captured around the same period.

A state under pressure

Lohit district, tucked into Arunachal Pradesh’s eastern corner near the Myanmar border, has become a flashpoint for human-wildlife conflict. The drivers are familiar: human settlements expanding into forest land, road infrastructure cutting through wildlife habitat, and traditional elephant movement routes increasingly disrupted. As forests fragment and wildlife corridors narrow, elephants come into contact with communities more frequently — and sometimes, fatally.

Arunachal Pradesh is among the states IWN watches closely, both because of its extraordinary biodiversity and because its wildlife stories often go underreported nationally. The Lohit operations are a reminder that conflict mitigation here is an active, high-stakes endeavour — one that increasingly depends on inter-state expert support and emerging technology.

Technology on the front line

The use of AI-enabled thermal drones in this operation marks a broader shift in how India’s forest departments are approaching human-wildlife conflict: less reactive, more equipped. Thermal imaging allows teams to locate animals in dense forest and at night, dramatically reducing the risk to both the capture team and the animal. When paired with experienced on-ground trackers and veterinary expertise, it is proving to be a powerful combination.

It is a development worth watching — not just for what it achieved in Lohit, but for what it signals about the direction of wildlife management across India’s most conflict-prone landscapes.