Elephants wreak havoc in West Bengal

Newspost Online
October 16th, 2008

Dooars (WB), Oct 15 (ANI): A group of elephants wrought havoc in Dooars region of Jalpaiguri district in West Bengal damaging tea gardens and destroying standing crops.

Around 40 elephants have trooped into the Washabarie tea gardens causing mayhem in the area.

Animal lovers say that because of man-animal conflict, the tuskers are forced to come out of the forests from time-to-time in search of food as their natural habitat is dwindling due to human encroachments.

According to the residents, the elephants, which have been coming out from the nearby forests, first appeared near the residential quarters of the tea garden workers and were driven away by the locals towards a nearby river.

But, they reappeared and caused damage to the paddy fields.

“Around 40 elephants entered in this division. Earlier, they were near the worker quarter. Now, the villagers have shooed them away to the nearby river,” said Balbir Singh Yash, a resident.

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