The CITES Monitoring the Illegal Killing of Elephants (or MIKE) Programme is a site-based system designed to monitor trends in levels of illegal killing of elephants and build capacity in sites spread across the range of African and Asian elephants. Information from MIKE is used by CITES Parties to inform decision making on elephant conservation and management. Read more about the MIKE Programme.
MIKE NETWORK
There are around 70 MIKE sites in 32 African elephant range States, and 28 MIKE sites in 13 Asian elephant range States. MIKE sites represent an estimated 50% of the African elephant population. Population estimates and distribution are less well known for Asian elephants, but the MIKE Programme has at least one site in all Asian range States. Each of these sites provides information to the MIKE programme on elephant carcasses discovered at the site during the year. Information collected and submitted include the type and the cause of elephant deaths. Participating range States are shown in green below.
The geographical designations employed in this document do not imply the expression of any opinion whatsoever on the part of the CITES Secretariat (or the United Nations Environment Programme) concerning the legal status of any country, territory, or area, or concerning the delimitation of its frontiers or boundaries.
CURRENT PROJECTS
Intra-Wildlife Trafficking — ‘MIKES+’
The MIKES+ project builds on and supports the highly successful previous projects, which has been implemented together with African Elephant range States . The MIKES+ project continues support for generating data on the status and trends in African elephant populations, illegal killing and illegal
ANALYSIS BY REGION
Using data collected by local law enforcement patrol staff at MIKE sites, the MIKE Programme estimates elephant poaching levels based on the ‘Proportion of Illegally Killed Elephants’ (or PIKE). PIKE is calculated as the number of illegally killed elephants found divided by the total number of elephant carcasses encountered, aggregated by site and year. It gives an indication of poaching pressure over time.
