Guwahati, Feb. 19: For a team that spends most part of the year chasing elephants from human habitats, the forest department knows without even counting that the number of homeless pachydrems has increased in the past year.

What it hopes to find out during the weeklong elephant census that begins in Assam tomorrow is whether this homelessness has affected the jumbo count.

Most fear that the elephant count is going the tiger way — the National Tiger Conservation Authority has pegged the tiger figure at 70 following a reduction in 90 square km of forest cover.

The elephant census, too, has also shown a steady downward slide during the past few counts.

In 1993, the figure was 5,524, while in 1997 it was 5,312.

The last elephant census in 2002 had pegged the number at 5,246 but with encroachments in elephant habitats in the last five years, the forest department has grave doubts if the population after this census can surpass or even match that figure.

Of course, there are debates within the department about the accuracy of the census. Elephant expert Kushal Konwar Sharma said the census only showed a trend and was far from providing even an approximate figure.

“Considering the constant migration of elephants, it is very difficult to arrive at a correct figure from the census,” he said.

Since the method employed for the census is that of “visual count”, some find it unreliable.

For about a week now, field officials will travel through protected and non-protected areas to arrive at a count.

The entire state has been divided into 700 elephant blocks and there will be three-member teams to count the jumbos.

The census was supposed to have been done last year but could not be carried out because of floods.

A debate is already raging in the forest department if the count this year will at least match that of the last census.

While some expect a dip in the elephant population because of accidents, poisoning, and electrocution, others believe that in pockets the count has gone up considerably.

Officials will closely watch the North Bank Landscape — the area between the northern bank of the Brahmaputra to the foothills of the eastern Himalayas in the north and the river Manas in the west to river Dibang in the east.

“There has been degradation in this area because of encroachment and elephants have been seen moving in and out. The picture does not look very rosy,” a field official of the forest department said.