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Camera traps were used to record the frequency of occurrence of elephants along with other animals and people. These images were recorded as datasheets using the time and date of occurrence along with the time and date of the species that came before and after the elephant. This data sheet was filtered and analysed to determine the time activity budget of the elephants at waterholes. The regions under study which are classified as low CI (Contiguity Index) regions and high CI regions were individually analysed to determine overlap or separation between the frequencies of elephants and other domestic animals. Statistical tools such as correlation coefficients, regression analysis and G test of independence was used to analyse these data sets quantitatively. The behaviour of elephants at these point sources with respect to other animals that came before and after them were recorded as fight, flight and neutral responses and they were analysed to see if there are differences in the frequencies of occurrence of each response. We find the time of the day and night when the frequency of elephants is highest and we find the same for domestic species. We could see that there is an overlap in the frequencies, especially in the low CI regions and there is also a causal relationship between the two frequencies. We could also see that in high CI regions, the frequency of elephants is more evenly spread out on the 24-hour scale compared to that of the low CI region. We couldn’t find a significant difference in the frequencies of occurrence of different behavioural responses.
Key words: Elephants, waterholes, occurrence, frequency, behaviour.
