New Delhi, Aug. 13: A preliminary analysis of India's latest elephant census has yielded a count of 27,312 which scientists say indicates a stable population despite threats from habitat loss, railways and conflicts with humans on agricultural landscapes.

The 2017 census count released on Saturday by the Union environment ministry is lower than the 2012 estimate of 29,000 to 30,000, but officials and scientists said the two numbers could not be compared because of differences in population-estimation strategies.

The new census has counted 27,312 elephants from 23 states, with the largest concentrations in the south and the Northeast. Karnataka has the highest estimated number of 6,049 elephants, followed by Assam (5,719) and Kerala (3,054).

Experts familiar with the population-estimation exercise and census operations conducted between March and May this year say some of the figures are likely to change when both direct and indirect counts are integrated for a more detailed estimation.

"I think we have a stable population of elephants, there is absolutely no indication of any decline," Raman Sukumar, professor and Chair of the centre for ecological sciences at the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, told The Telegraph .

The census has shown evidence of elephants spreading across states. The 194 elephants counted by the census in south Bengal are primarily from Jharkhand that migrated about three decades ago and have moved and multiplied in Bankura, Birbhum, Midnapore, which has since been bifurcated into two districts, Purulia and Jhargram.

Elephants from Jharkhand have also moved into Bihar's Bhagalpur, Banka and Jamui districts and from Nepal into Supaul, Araria, Kishanganj and West Champaran.

The environment ministry said the census count released on Saturday was based only on direct count and a revised count was likely to emerge when indirect count based on dung examination is also taken into account from all states.

Elephants are long-ranging animals and have been observed in recent years to be increasingly dispersing from forests into agricultural landscapes. An environment ministry task force in 2010 had estimated that crop-raiding elephants affect about one million hectares of farmland in India.

"This is the issue we need to be worried about - the increasing trend of human-elephant conflicts," said Sukumar, who started studying human-elephant conflicts in the southern states between 1980 and 1985 as part of his PhD programme.

Wild elephants on average kill about 450 people across India each year now compared to about 150 in the early 1980s.

But elephants also face danger from railway tracks. The Union railway ministry told Parliament last month that 40 elephants had been killed on railway tracks between January 2014 and July 2017.

The railway ministry has asked train drivers to adhere to speed restrictions and blow the horn continuously while moving along vulnerable sections of railway tracks, such as those passing through or close to wildlife sanctuaries.

Conservation scientists believe that India accounts for about 60 per cent of Asian elephants.