India's elephant warning system tackles deadly conflict

In central India's dry forests, community trackers hunt for signs of elephants to feed into an alert system that is helping prevent some of the hundreds of fatal tramplings each year. 

The app, developed by Indian firm Kalpvaig, crunches the data and then triggers warnings to nearby villagers. There are fewer than 50,000 Asian elephants in the wild, according to the World Wildlife Fund. 

The majority are in India, with others in Sri Lanka and Southeast Asia. Authorities said the government-funded alert system has slashed casualties. The app requires trackers to monitor the elusive animals over vast areas of thick bush, but the forest officials said the alert system was more effective than darting and fixing radio collars to the pachyderms.

Radio collars would be usually fitted to the matriarch, because that helps track the rest of the herd who follow her.