Woman killed by wild elephants in Latehar

A woman was trampled to death by a group of wild elephants in Dhamdhamia forest located under Garu Police Station area of this district.

The deceased has been identified as Radhika Devi (55). The husband of the deceased said yesterday his wife had gone to graze the cattle in the forest but failed to return. Today when they conducted a search in the forest her body was recovered.

Later the villagers informed the police. Her body was sent for post-mortem to Sadar Hospital. A team of the forest department later handed over Rs 25,000 as immediate compensation to the family.

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Linking your cup of Assam tea to elephant conservation

Areas where the pachyderms seek refuge outside of protected areas, such as tea and other agricultural plantations, could be manipulated to manage human-elephant conflicts.

The Elephant Friendly Tea programme serves as an incentive to tea producers to reduce the impacts of tea agriculture, such as ditch hazards and fencing, on elephants.

Tea plantations are generally used as ‘stepping stones’ or ‘rest stops’ by elephants as they move through a human-dominated landscape.

Communities in proximity to elephant refuges were significantly more likely to experience conflict with elephants, predominantly in the form of crop raiding or damage to granaries.

With forest cover projected to shrink in the elephant landscape of northeast India, conservationists and a handful of growers of the iconic Assam and Darjeeling teas are experimenting with a mix of ideas to link tea farming to conservation.

India is the second largest tea grower after China and the 172-year old Assam tea industry in northeast India leads the country’s tea production.

According to 2011 census, the population of Assam forms 2.58 percent of India.

Assam with an elephant area (15, 050 square km) the size of East Timor, is India’s prime elephant range state, harbouring 5719 jumbos, the highest population of wild elephants in the country after Karnataka.

While connoisseurs across the world deliberate on the perfect cuppa, tensions mount as habitats shrink and sprawling tea estates block historic migratory passages of the jumbos, stoking incidences of man-elephant conflicts in the state.

As recent as last month (October 2018), tea garden workers laid seige at the residence of the garden’s manager after a herd of wild elephants reportedly trampled a labourer engaged in plucking leaves, in Assam’s Udalguri district, along the scenic India-Bhutan border.

But small tea farmer Tenzing Bodosa, who owns two gardens in Assam’s Udalguri district, takes pride in the fact that his farm produces certified elephant-friendly tea.

Transboundary walking routes

Herds of wild elephants move back and forth with the seasons across the international border between India and Bhutan.

Bodosa’s farms totalling 40 acres have been certified as the world’s first elephant-friendly tea farms under Elephant FriendlyTM Tea program, a partnership of Wildlife Friendly Enterprise Network and the University of Montana Broader Impacts Group.

Bodosa, who switched to organic farming methods around 10 to 12 years ago maintains a small refuge patch like a forest as an extension of his farm. Unlike other growers in the area, there are no drainage ditches where the ambling pachyderms can fall into or fences that hinder their progress.

“I preserve plants such as bamboo, elephant grass and different fruit plants that elephants prefer in their habitat. I have a buffer area where I maintain forest patches where the elephants come. We do not use pesticides or poisons. During day-time they take shelter and then towards evening they move out,” Bodosa told Mongabay India.

The certification program serves as an incentive to tea producers to reduce the impacts of tea agriculture on elephants, observed Lisa Mills, liason for University of Montana on this project.

Adherence to certification standards helps wild elephants by reducing the blockage of elephant corridors, lowering human-elephant conflict, eliminating electrocution and poisoning risks and mitigating ditch hazards, Mills said.

It also replaces habitat loss with habitat recovery and supporting landscape connectivity and foraging opportunities for far-ranging wild elephants in a human-dominated landscape.

“With a percentage of every sale going back to support elephant conservation in the communities where the tea is grown, tea drinkers can directly support human-elephant co-existence.”

From your cuppa to elephant habitat

Apart from Bodosa’s farms, the 1200 acre Nuxalbari Tea Estate in Darjeeling in northern West Bengal has become the first large tea estate in the world to be certified as elephant-friendly this year. West Bengal, on the east coast, is intersected with inter-state and inter-country elephant corridors.

Sonia Jabbar, who runs the organic tea estate, had initiated human-animal conflict mitigation and conservation steps seven years before coming across the certification programme.

“We have made a commitment to abstain from violence and protect elephant herds as they visit our gardens. It is heart wrenching to see how elephants are hounded and chased away with sticks, stones and fireworks in what was once their migratory routes. We would have continued with our efforts whether we received the certification or not,” Jabbar said.

For instance, the estate’s Haathi Saathi (elephant is a friend) initiative educates and sensitises workers’ children while security guards are trained to let the jumbos pass through unharmed.

India with 27, 312 elephants is also home to 60 percent of the global population of Asian elephants.

Kushal Konwar Sarma, noted elephant veterinarian and veteran conservationist, explained that vast swathes of forests were alienated for tea plantations in 19th century Assam under the then British government as part of their “wasteland grants.”

The book “Playing with Nature: History and Politics of Environment in North-East India” states that “in the face of huge expanse of forested areas and the discovery of tea, imperial interests came to include forests within the connotation of ‘wastelands’, something that is waste and so becomes necessary to put to productive use.”

“These plantation areas were government lands on lease to the tea companies, they do not belong to the tea gardens. It was a condition given by the British government initially that we are giving you this plot of land on lease for tea plantation but you have to leave ten percent of the area for wildlife. But people forgot about it and only a handful of tea gardens are following this,” Sarma told Mongabay-India.

“When we started our conservation work we realised that elephants need a place to rest, they need some food and water. Tea is not palatable to the elephants. We formed the idea of community elephant refuges where people can maintain a forest of couple of hectares with a perennial source of water which we can do with the help of the bigger tea gardens and the whole area can be replanted with food trees for the elephants,” Sarma said.

Tea gardens as part of elephant-friendly landscape?

Elephants see tea gardens as an extension of their forest habitats, but it is difficult to convince people to act on it by introducing refuge patches, Sarma concedes.

“They say ‘why to bring the trouble to your courtyard’ but we counter them by pointing out that the trouble is already here. These elephants are hungry, they are on empty stomachs, they are like tsunamis, they break through your houses and raid crops. But if you create a refuge, they will visit your villages but they will visit like gentle ocean waves,” he said.

“We have managed to convince some good tea garden managers in Udalguri and Sonitpur districts. They have earmarked areas for wildlife. These areas are frequented by elephants,” observed Sarma.

Scott Wilson, co-author of a 2013 study that analysed elephant occurrence and related instances of human–elephant conflict from two sites in Assam, said tea plantations in themselves could potentially be considered as part of a larger more elephant friendly landscape.

He iterated that areas where the pachyderms seek refuge (tea and other agricultural plantations rather than national parks or other significant natural habitats) could be manipulated to manage human-elephant conflicts.

But these measures are more of a “firefighting” mechanism, according to Wilson and Sarma.

“Realistically, resources are probably better focussed on protecting and expanding the core elephant habitats within India and protecting elephant populations providing the best probabilities of long term persistence,” Wilson, Head of Field Programmes, Chester Zoo, told Mongabay-India.

Chester Zoo’s Valerie de Liedekerke who manages the Assam Haathi Project adds that there may be instances where key elephant habitats could be effectively ‘connected’ using mitigation and improved refuges, but she suspects these instances will be rare.

“I wouldn’t advocate that efforts shouldn’t be made to improve elephant conservation and welfare in these plantations, just that they need to be realistically assessed when considering the wider elephant landscape and where strategic investment of effort should be,” Liedekerke said.

Sarma said the inevitable is already happening.

“Everyday elephants are dying of electrocution, poisoning, farmers are killing them, somebody is killing them for ivory, trains are running over them across the country. If you target one species like this then how long will they survive,” he wondered.

Official figures show nearly 800 people were killed by wild elephants in Assam between 2006 and 2016. As many as 72 elephants were killed between 2013 and 2014, with more than 100 killed in 2012.

Forest cover in Lesser Himalayan elephant landscape predicted to fall

Assam’s forests and its elephant corridors are reeling under encroachment pressure. Studies by the Wildlife Trust of India reveal that in northeast India 52.2 percent of elephant corridors are under settled cultivation and 43.4 percent under slash and burn cultivation.

Indian government data has linked tea gardens to a decrease in forest cover in some Assam districts.

“The decrease in forest cover in some districts is mainly due to rotational felling in tea gardens, shifting cultivation and developmental activities,” the environment ministry’s State of the Forest report said in 2017.

A 2018 study that monitored the reduction of forest cover in parts of Assam and Arunachal Pradesh over 42,375 square km in an elephant landscape falling in the Lesser Himalaya in the northeast, predicted a further likely decrease of 9007.14 square km by 2028.

The analysis which covered a vast elephant landscape spread across West Bengal-Assam, Assam-Bhutan and Assam-Arunachal Pradesh borders in the lesser Himalayas, found “an alarming, continuous” loss of about 7,590 square km (17.92 per cent) of forest cover from 1924 to 2009.

The area under tea gardens also increased during the study period. Other non-forest

categories too showed progressive increase in area in time and space, and a further increase is expected by 2028. Area under tea gardens is expected increase from 713. 97 square km in 2009 to 720.54 square km in 2028, the study said.

Wilson, whose study extended to the tea garden dominated Sonitpur district, also referred to as the ground-zero of human elephant conflict, said the animals used the tea plantations (in Sonitpur site) as ‘stepping stones’ as they move through a human-dominated landscape.

“Taking refuge in the plantations during the day and then moving out during the night to continue their migration or sometimes to just use the tea plantations as a ‘base’ for periods from which they will then forage in outlying cropland during the night,” Wilson told Mongabay-India.

There is evidence to show that they raid crops or grain stores of communities that surround tea plantations, said Wilson.

Wild elephants also use the elongated and narrow gardens along the southern banks of the Brahmaputra river while moving to and from the Kaziranga National Park and Karbi-Anglong hills, observed Sarma.

The problem of plenty

Wilson’s study elaborates that the tea garden communities are largely composed of immigrant labourers, and such communities may not have the experience of dealing with elephants or share the local tolerant attitude towards elephants, which is influenced by religion.

The Ministry of Environment Forest and Climate Change highlights that development activities and houses in movement path of elephants (especially labour lines in tea gardens) are also causes of encounter between human and elephants leading to conflict.

These communities live on the edge of tea gardens, which function as refuge areas, and are therefore situated in high-risk areas for human–elephant conflict.

“Our study found that communities in proximity to refuges (whether this be forest patches or tea plantations) were significantly more likely to experience conflict with elephants (predominantly in the form of crop raiding or damage to granaries),” said Wilson.

Ideally refuge areas need to be forest corridors rather than tea plantation – these would have wider wildlife and ecological benefits, he added.

But in many areas the domination of people in the landscape makes this prospect very difficult – in terms of acquisition of land to make into refuge but also the fact that it potentially invites greater conflict for the communities surrounding these refuges, Wilson said.

Such an undertaking would therefore need very strong stakeholder support and mitigation measures to enable communities to coexist with elephants.

Sarma said we have collectively allowed human population to grow beyond the carrying capacity of the land.

“This is an ecology fragile area and is a biodiversity hotspot and we need to preserve sanctity of the place. Politically motivated trans-migration of people (pre- and post-Independence) was engineered. In addition, almost one crore of tea garden labourers come from Bihar, Jharkhand and Chattisgarh. So when people are here, they need land for survival and now elephants have nowhere to go,” Sarma bemoaned.

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Jumbo havoc in Purulia

A herd of 20-25 wild elephants that has strayed into the Ayodhya foothills in Purulia have been destroying crops in six villages for the past one week.

The elephants from Odisa and the Dalma range in Jharkhand have injured a villager, destroyed paddy across 10 hectares and damaged a dozen mud houses.

But as the elephants create havoc in the villages, tourists are excited and plan to see the jumbos.

Forest officials in Purulia said the elephants had split in small groups and were entering human habitats after sunset to feed on paddy that was almost mature for harvesting, and also vegetables from the fields.

Forest officials said it was tough to locate the elephants and chase them back to the Dalma range as the villages they were entering were inside thick forests. That the jumbos come at night and are splitting into small groups are not helping either.

“We are chasing the elephants back to the forest with the help of hula parties (groups of villagers trained to drive away wild elephants), but they are again entering the villages. The area is surrounded by large swathes of forests and hills, which are providing cover to the elephants,” said Dulal Chandra Bauri, the beat officer of the Matha forest range in Baghmundi.

The villagers said they were avoiding going out of home after sunset for fear of the elephants. Traders at Baghmundi are closing their shops before dusk and the villages wear a deserted look after sundown.

The villagers said they were spending sleepless nights fearing that the elephants might attack them anytime.

Parikhit Mahato, 60, who was injured in the elephant attack, has been admitted to a local hospital. One of the elephants lifted him with its trunk when he was returning from the forest after collecting dry logs and hurled him to the ground.

Forest officials said Purulia, Bankura, Jhargram, Birbhum, West Midnapore and East and West Burdwan — with large swathes of forests and rivers flowing through them — are part of the corridor elephants from Odisha and the Dalma range use. For the past few years elephants have been regularly straying into human habitats.

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Ivory smugglers find it safe on Kolkata-bound trains

Thrissur: Poaching of elephants is rife in forests in south India. A Thiruvananthapuram-based racket involved in the poaching of elephants for ivory has been taking its loot by train to Kolkata's Shalimar and New Market areas and smuggling them out to Nepal, it is learnt.

The hunters rely on trains for smuggling the tusk. Cabins under the seats of railway staff is a safe place. The storage spaces in trains are also used to hide the contraband.

Eighteen elephants have been victims of the poaching gang in Kerala forests alone in the past three years. Their crime also covered areas like the Mysore division in Karnataka, and the Erode division in Tamil Nadu, from where they have taken away ivory worth crores by train to Shalimar.

The forest department is aware of the Thiruvananthapuram gang that 'exports' the ivory from southern states, but inquiries on the crime often stopped with middlemen. Poaching in Kerala has come down after the Idamalayar jumbo slaughter racket was exposed, but forest department documents have proof that the hunters are indeed active.

The department has information that a group of 30 sculptors in Shalimar and New Market are crafting the looted ivory at a hideout. The gang then smuggles the ivory sculptures to Nepal, where they fetch three times the price of the raw material.

Middlemen pay Rs 40,000 to 45,000 per kg to those who slaughter wild elephants and hand over the tusk. The loot gets Rs75,000 per kg in Kolkata. Once it becomes a finished art work, the price shoots up to Rs 1.25 lakh.

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Assam: Wild elephants go on rampage in Baksa villages

A herd of wild elephants went on a rampage and left behind a trail of destruction at Nagrijuli area in Baksa district of Assam on Wednesday night. The wild tuskers created terror at several villages falling under the Nagrijuli Development Block in the said district.

It is reported that elephant habitats are shrinking along the Indo-Bhutan border due to continuous human encroachment thus forcing them to come out of their natural habitats in search of food and, in the process, triggering conflict with the locals.

The said group of wild elephants entered Nagrijuli Tea Estate on Wednesday night and sat along the bank of Bornadi River. In search of food, the marauding tuskers entered Line No 6 and 8 of Nagrijuli Tea Estate and crushed the houses of Birshi Munda, Apurba Dundi, Amrit Bagh, Albish and Dilkumar. Another herd of wild pachyderms entered the nearby Dongargao village and smashed the houses of Uttam Biswas and Gudum Munda and broke the shops of Santosh Rai and Boistav Rai.

The marauding tuskers ate whatever food was left inside the houses and the shops and caused huge loss of property. The helpless villagers tried their best to chase away the wild elephants, but in vain. The villagers as well as the labourers of Nagrijuli Tea Estate stayed awake the whole night till the group of wild elephants left for the jungles at dawn.

The villagers have demanded that the State Government and the concerned authorities should take necessary steps to stop human-elephant conflict but, wildlife activists say that human encroachment in the forests of Northeast India have forced elephants out of their habitats thus triggering the said situation. Elephants rampage through villages in search of food as their habitats are being overtaken by people, say conservationists.


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Assam: Wild elephants go on rampage in Baksa villages

A herd of wild elephants went on a rampage and left behind a trail of destruction at Nagrijuli area in Baksa district of Assam on Wednesday night. The wild tuskers created terror at several villages falling under the Nagrijuli Development Block in the said district.

It is reported that elephant habitats are shrinking along the Indo-Bhutan border due to continuous human encroachment thus forcing them to come out of their natural habitats in search of food and, in the process, triggering conflict with the locals.

The said group of wild elephants entered Nagrijuli Tea Estate on Wednesday night and sat along the bank of Bornadi River. In search of food, the marauding tuskers entered Line No 6 and 8 of Nagrijuli Tea Estate and crushed the houses of Birshi Munda, Apurba Dundi, Amrit Bagh, Albish and Dilkumar. Another herd of wild pachyderms entered the nearby Dongargao village and smashed the houses of Uttam Biswas and Gudum Munda and broke the shops of Santosh Rai and Boistav Rai.

The marauding tuskers ate whatever food was left inside the houses and the shops and caused huge loss of property. The helpless villagers tried their best to chase away the wild elephants, but in vain. The villagers as well as the labourers of Nagrijuli Tea Estate stayed awake the whole night till the group of wild elephants left for the jungles at dawn.

The villagers have demanded that the State Government and the concerned authorities should take necessary steps to stop human-elephant conflict but, wildlife activists say that human encroachment in the forests of Northeast India have forced elephants out of their habitats thus triggering the said situation. Elephants rampage through villages in search of food as their habitats are being overtaken by people, say conservationists.


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Jumbo herd wreaks havoc in Assam’s Udalguri district; elephant menace prevails in Numaligarh region

Conflict between man and elephant seems to be a never ending story in Assam. The regions of Harisinga and Paneri in Udalguri district is seeing pianic spread among the local people over the increased presence of wild elephants in the area.

A large herd of elephants has damaged human habitations and crops. Large number of elephants have been roaming in broad daylight. The lackadaisical attitude of the forest department has forced the local people to take certain measures to drive off elephants from their villages and farmlands.

Apart from Udalguri, elephant menace is also being witnessed in Assam’s Sundarpur region near Numaligarh where packs of jumbos have being raiding at human settlements and destroying crops.

People are spending sleepeless while fearing for their lives and properties due to the jumbo menace. Man-elephant conflict has become an almost regular affair in the region around Numaligarh.


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Assam mulls roadmap to curb conflict with elephants

GUWAHATI: Confronted with the growing incidence of human-elephant conflict in the state and constrained by manpower crunch, the Assam forest department will soon constitute public coordination groups in a joint effort to create a roadmap to mitigate the problem in the affected areas.

“To start with, five groups will be formed at Nonaikhuti, Rajagarh, Paneri, Santipur and Udalguri for better coordination between villagers and the forest department,” MK Sarma, divisional forest officer of Dhansiri forest division, Udalguri, told The Shillong Times on Tuesday.

Three persons have been trampled to death and one injured in the past two months in Udalguri district under Bodoland Territorial Council even as encroachment by humans and subsequent loss of habitat and corridor blocks have compounded the problem.

“A district-level coordination committee meeting will be held this week where the gaon burahs (village headmen) and people having knowledge on the ground realities would be invited to take part. Suggestions and opinions would be taken into account in order to find out what needs to be done and subsequently create a roadmap to mitigate this conflict,” Sarma said.

The conflict has taken a serious turn in Goalpara forest division as well where at least 50 migratory elephants from Garo Hills are present. A couple of days back, two persons were reportedly trampled to death by a solitary elephant.

Obstruction of pathways (corridors) has rendered wild elephants directionless thereby triggering the conflict in the state’s reserved forests.


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Jumbos run amok

Keonjhar: The wild elephants have destroyed over a dozen of houses and trampling croplands at villages in the Champua forest range jurisdiction.

The herd, which had strayed into the villages, are from the Similipal Tiger Reserve in Mayurbhanj district. The elephants had migrated to the villages a fortnight ago. However, they had been driven away to their habitat. But, they reappeared again on Wednesday evening, said forest officials.

Though the jumbos have caused damaged to property and farm lands, so far no human casualty or injury has been reported.

The villages affected by elephant depredation are Banika, Katulikana, Tunutuna near the dense forest areas in Champua range.

The animals led their habitation corridor of Similipal Tiger Reserve and traversed through over 100km of hilly terrains and dense forest to stray into the reserve forest. The villages, where the elephants have strayed, are home to about 6,000 residents.

Skilled service group of elephant chasers are keeping round-the-clock watch on the animals. The GPS-tracking teams have spotted the jumbos' movements near the villages. They are on the job to chase them from there.

"As the location of elephants has been tracked, we are hopeful of blocking the animals' movement route to the villages and drive them away," the official said.

Odisha, which houses 70 per cent of total elephant population in east India, has been witnessing deteriorating human-elephant conflict with jumbo depredation spreading to 26 out of 30 districts of the state. The wild animals wander villages searching for food due to shrinking habitats.

Elephant attack

A five-year-old girl, who was sleeping at home, was killed after an elephant herd went on rampage at Basupali village in Katarbaga police limits of Sambalpur on Thursday.


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Gaj Yatra honours Meghalaya’s elephant corridor effort

• Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change and the Wildlife Trust of India has rolled out the ‘Gaj Yatra’ from Tura, the principle town of Garo Hills in Meghalaya. The event involves taking an elephant mascot across district frequented by jumbo herds for generating awareness among the people.

• The role of Nokmas, traditional custodians of the land, is important here in supporting the move towards co-existence between man and animal and helping conservationists for the success of the initiative.

==>About Gaj Yatra

• Gaj Yatra, a nationwide campaign to protect elephants, was launched on the occasion of World Elephant Day in 2017. The campaign is planned to cover 12 elephant range states. The elephant is part of India’s animal heritage and the Government celebrates this day to spread awareness about the conservation of the species.

• The 15 months campaign will be led by the Wildlife Trust of India. The campaign aims to create awareness about the elephant corridors to encourage free movement in their habitat.

==>World Elephant Day

• World Elephant Day is an annual event celebrated across the world on August 12, dedicated to the preservation and protection of elephants. The goal of World Elephant Day is to create awareness about the plight of elephants and to share knowledge and positive solutions for the better care and management of captive and wild elephants.

• African elephants are listed as “vulnerable” and Asian elephants as “endangered” in the IUCN Red List of threatened species. As per the available population estimates, there are about 400,000 African elephants and 40,000 Asian elephants.

• World Elephant Day is celebrated to focus the attention of various stakeholders in supporting various conservation policies to help protect elephants, including improving enforcement policies to prevent illegal poaching and trade in ivory, conserving elephant habitats, providing better treatment for captive elephants and reintroducing captive elephants into sanctuaries.


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Man-jumbo conflict in Assam’s Udalguri: 2 killed, 1 hurt in jumbo attack

The Udalguri district, under Bodoland Territorial Area Districts (BTAD), has witnessed a steady rise in human-elephant conflict over the past decade.

The illegal human encroachment in the age-old elephant corridors of Udalguri district bordering Bhutan has posed serious threat to ecology of the district

Unabated felling of trees in Khalingduar Reserve Forest and Bornadi Wildlife Sanctuary has led to destruction of the green cover compelling wild elephants to roam in human habitats. The Indo-Bhutan border region is fraught with human-animal conflicts resulting in deaths of several elephants and human lives since the 1980s and such incidents have been continuing to take place in the district.

In the last 24 hours, two separate incidents of man-elephant conflict have jolted the Indo-Bhutan border populace.

Two persons were killed and one was injured critically in wild jumbo attack within last 24 hours in Garuajhar area under Panery Police Station in Udalguri.

As per reports, one 48-year-old tea garden labourer, identified as Pitus Tigda, was trampled to death in Uttar Garuajhar area on Monday night.


In another incident, a mother-son duo was attacked at Niz Garuajhar on Tuesday morning.

A 24-year-old youth, identified as Ashraful Ali, succumbed to his injuries while his mother, 55-year-old Meharjan Begum, has been battling for life.

Forest sources claimed that a makhana (male elephant without tusk), which is hell-bent on causing harm, is behind both the incidents. It has claimed many human lives in the recent past.

“In last one year alone, Udalguri has witnessed seven human and eight wild elephant deaths due to man-elephant encounters. It is obvious that an increasing human population in a critical wildlife habitat is one of the main reasons for the conflicts,” said Nabajyoti Baruah, a well-known wildlife activist of Udalguri.


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Elephant ambassadors of Kannada

Many States want them for forest duties, but they understand only one language


In a twist in the saga of human-animal conflict, animals captured in one part of the country are helping protect forests in other areas.

Dudhwa National Park, Uttar Pradesh, which had just 13 elephants to patrol the vast terai, recently imported 10 from Karnataka. Three more elephants will join a proposed elephant camp in Jharkhand’s Palamu Tiger Reserve. Uttarakhand, among the first to import elephants — nine have been working in Corbett Tiger Reserve since 2016 — wants 16 more: six for Rajaji Tiger Reserve and 10 for Nandhaur Wildlife Sanctuary. “We don’t have permission or trained personnel who can capture wild elephants and train them,” says Digvijay Khati, Chief Wildlife Warden. “In Karnataka, they have a system and were willing to donate.” Inquiries have also come from Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh.


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Poachers play deadly ivory game in Kerala forests

13 kg of elephant teeth and ivory artefacts seized, exposing resurgent trade linking Thiruvananthapuram and Kolkata

The word on the street early this April about a hair loss remedy, an oil which contained ground wild elephant teeth kindled the curiosity of forest officers in Kerala.

Their investigations into the rumour led them to “Hasthadantha” Mashi, an ancient Ayurvedic salve that is said to aid hair growth. Word spread and so did the demand for the hair oil. This was bad news for wild elephants. Along with ivory, their teeth were also now in demand.

In pursuit of the poachers, investigators tapped into a network of wildlife traffickers in south India and learnt that animal trappers in Idukki Wild Life Sanctuary had elephant teeth to sell. An enforcement official, posing as an Ayurvedic practitioner and a buyer of wildlife trophies, met with the suspects a few times, dropped names of wealthy buyers, showed them money and gained their trust.


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Assam: Morning walker trampled to death by elephant herd in Digboi

A women was trampled to death by a herd of wild elephants at Muliabari housing area in Digboi of upper Assam‘s Tinsukia district on Sunday morning. Digboi is 32.37 km from Tinsukia town. The woman was identified as Kumari Rana, 65, of Digboi town.

Sources said the women went out for morning walk at 4.30 am and suddenly fall on a herd of wild elephants which comes out from Upper Dehing reserve forest east block. The wild heard trampled her to death. The deceased woman is a resident of Digboi town and few days ago she came to her daughter’s house at Muliabari housing area.

Digboi forest ranger, Parineeta Singh on Sunday said the local resident informed them about the incident and they rushed to the area and found that the women was trampled to death by a heard of wild elephant.

“The elephants heard frequently seen in the Oil field area which falls under Upper Dehing reserve forest east block. The herd comes into the area in search of food. We sent the body for post mortem examination and an immediate compensation of Rs 50,000 has been given to the family members of her family. After verifying post mortem reports and other documents Rs 4 lakh will be handed over to her family as compensation,” Singh added.

Man-elephant conflict has been rising tremendously in the upper Assam region and this is the sixth death reported from this region.

An source said a heard of elephants frequently comes out from Upper Dehing reserve forest east block in search of food and entered into the human habitation. In Assam every year many people lost their life in elephant attack. On May 12, Phulmoti Pegu was trampled to death by a heard of elephants at Demow in Sivsagar district.

Man-jumbo conflict in Assam’s Udalguri: 2 killed, 1 hurt in jumbo attack

The Udalguri district, under Bodoland Territorial Area Districts (BTAD), has witnessed a steady rise in human-elephant conflict over the past decade.

The illegal human encroachment in the age-old elephant corridors of Udalguri district bordering Bhutan has posed serious threat to ecology of the district.

Unabated felling of trees in Khalingduar Reserve Forest and Bornadi Wildlife Sanctuary has led to destruction of the green cover compelling wild elephants to roam in human habitats. The Indo-Bhutan border region is fraught with human-animal conflicts resulting in deaths of several elephants and human lives since the 1980s and such incidents have been continuing to take place in the district.

In the last 24 hours, two separate incidents of man-elephant conflict have jolted the Indo-Bhutan border populace.

Two persons were killed and one was injured critically in wild jumbo attack within last 24 hours in Garuajhar area under Panery Police Station in Udalguri.

As per reports, one 48-year-old tea garden labourer, identified as Pitus Tigda, was trampled to death in Uttar Garuajhar area on Monday night.


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Elephant scare a bygone in Birgaon village post electrification

Birgaon (Jharkhand), May 18 (PTI) Having lived in fear of wild elephants for decades, inhabitants of this tiny hamlet under Gumla district feel a lot safer today, thanks to electrification. Due to solar street lights in Birgaon village, now the elephants no more enter and ransack the houses in search of food, say inhabitants. “Ever since we got electricity in our houses in December last year, there has not been a single case of elephant trespassing into this village,” Sunda Munda, an inhabitant of Birgaon said.

Birgaon is among 11 other villages in Jharkhand which have been electrified by Azure Power- an independent solar service provider.

The company has set up a mini grid of 6 KW in the village, which has a population of over 100 people. The grid provides per household power to run 3 LED bulbs. Besides, each household has access to two power sockets.

Birgaon now has access to power supply for 14 hours, said Bikas Kumar, Deputy Manager (Infra) Azure Power.

In a tender floated by Jharkhand Renewable Energy Development Agency last year, Azure Power won a project to electrify 320 households across 11 villages in Gumla and Hazaribagh districts of the state.

Besides providing security to the villagers, the electricity has brought down the consumption of kerosene oil to almost nil.


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Elephant scare a bygone in Birgaon village post electrification

Having lived in fear of wild elephants for decades, inhabitants of this tiny hamlet under Gumla district feel a lot safer today, thanks to electrification.

Due to solar street lights in Birgaon village, now the elephants no more enter and ransack the houses in search of food, say inhabitants.


"Ever since we got electricity in our houses in December last year, there has not been a single case of elephant trespassing into this village," Sunda Munda, an inhabitant of Birgaon said.

Birgaon is among 11 other villages in Jharkhand which have been electrified by Azure Power- an independent solar service provider.

The company has set up a mini grid of 6 KW in the village, which has a population of over 100 people. The grid provides per household power to run 3 LED bulbs. Besides, each household has access to two power sockets.

Birgaon now has access to power supply for 14 hours, said Bikas Kumar, Deputy Manager (Infra) Azure Power.

In a tender floated by Jharkhand Renewable Energy Development Agency last year, Azure Power won a project to electrify 320 households across 11 villages in Gumla and Hazaribagh districts of the state.

Besides providing security to the villagers, the electricity has brought down the consumption of kerosene oil to almost nil.

"Now I no more buy kerosene to burn lamps, so I save around Rs 200 every month," Navita Munda, another villager of Birgaon said.

The villagers have all the more reasons to cherish now as they don't have to walk down to the neighbouring village, almost 4-km away, to buy kerosene.

Munda said children of the village are the happier lot now as they can study during night as well.


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Corridor block compounds man-elephant conflict on border

GUWAHATI: Disruption of traditional elephant corridors and decreasing access to food has compounded the conflict between humans and elephants in areas along and near the Assam-Meghalaya border, forest officials here say.
“A majority of the wild elephants who cross over to the Goalpara forest division near the border are originally from Garo Hills, and with the traditional/regular routes taken by the herds blocked of late because of erection of electric fences in Garo Hills, the elephants have literally no option but to take a detour,” a senior official from the Assam forest department told The Shillong Times on Saturday.
On Friday, a herd of 28 wild elephants had reportedly damaged several houses and destroyed crops in the Dhekiabari area in Krishnai (Goalpara district) near the Assam-Meghalaya border. However, there was no casualty or injury caused to any person.
Forest sources say that unlike Rani and Garbhanga under Guwahati wildlife division, which has a large forest area facilitating better movement of elephant herds, the reserved forests in Goalpara division are smaller and scattered.
“The elephants in these 30 to 40 scattered reserved forests earlier used to migrate to Bangladesh but now they are confined to the border areas of Assam and Meghalaya. Also, most villagers in Goalpara district are taking up large-scale rubber plantation and hence access to food for these marauding elephants has become limited. So, these herds resort to destroying houses and granaries in search of food,” the forest official said.
The herds, he said, generally raid human habitation in search of food during winter. “But of late, there is an apparent deviation and we are noticing a growing trend of elephants raiding human habitation in other seasons as well,” the forest official said.
According to the report of the Comptroller and Auditor General of India (year ended March 31, 2017), close to 10,000 cases of human-elephant conflicts have been reported from Meghalaya in the past five years.
Twenty five persons died, 22 injured and about 4,009 hectares of cropland damaged in such conflicts between 2012 and 2017.
Meghalaya is home to around 1,800 elephants with Garo Hills region alone (including Balpakram National Park), accounting for about two-thirds of such conflicts, the CAG report said.


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Assam’s Elephant Emergency

One sultry afternoon in October 2002, a small paddy farmer (who prefers not to be named) in Sonitpur district in the northeastern Indian state of Assam bought a few packets of Demecron, an organophosphorus-based pesticide. Demecron was then banned in the district; however, the lethal pesticide was still abundantly available in the black market as it continued to fetch buyers like him among the district’s farmers. The reason was obvious: to deter pests that had been regularly raiding crops in various parts of the district.

Significantly, the pest they were using Demecron to deter was of a different kind — something that isn’t normally seen as a pest or vermin but revered as a living embodiment of god in India. This “pest” rumbles through the jungle, trampling tall thickets of grass and bushes, but could be as stealthy as a slithering snake in its nightly crop depredations. It was nothing other than a herd of wandering wild elephants that plundered on croplands, as forests — the herd’s natural source of food, and habitat — had dramatically dwindled in the district due to rampant illegal logging, and human settlements gnawing away at the green spaces.

The district administration’s ban on Demecron had come following the death of more than a dozen wild elephants due to poisoning in the district’s Nameri and Haleswar areas the previous year — between July and November, 2001 — an event that jolted conservationists across the region.


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Chevrolet saves wild elephants in Thailand

Following the success of its CSR project “Chevrolet Saves Wild Elephants” with Thai media earlier this year, Chevrolet Thailand welcomed more than 80 of its customers and employee representatives to also participate in the project. The customers and employees helped to build artificial salt licks and paint semi-permanent fences to help nourish and protect wildlife in Kaeng Krachan National Park, located in Huai Satyai, Prachuap Kirikhan province. The customers and employees also donated supplies to the authority of Kaeng Krachan National Park, adding to the previous efforts of participating members of the Thai media.

To support this ongoing initiative, Chevrolet is cooperating with park officials and local communities to curtail human-elephant conflict in the area, which is a major concern for elephant conservation in Thailand’s largest national park. The project is further supported by academic institutes and non-governmental organisations looking to provide elephants with access to artificial salt licks, a source of essential nutrients, while preventing the animals from invading community areas. The customers and employee representatives also helped to build and paint semi-permanent fences to prevent wild elephants from invading farms, destroying crops and entering dangerous areas such as roads and driveways.


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