THIS NEW DEVICE COULD SAVE THOUSANDS OF ELEPHANTS FROM BEING HIT BY TRAINS IN INDIA

A new, high-tech device is set to be tested in India that could prevent the rising number of elephants killed by trains.

A decade in the making, the device — developed by Professor Subrat Kar at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Delhi — uses sensors, cameras, and lasers to detect the presence of elephants near the train tracks. Once elephants are detected, the sensors send messages directly to drivers so they can either slow down or stop the train completely.

This device is long overdue and highly needed; India has the highest number of elephant deaths due to trains in the world. Between 1987 and 2017, 266 elephants were killed by trains.

Last year, 12 elephants were killed by trains, but 2018 has already seen the death of 26 elephants due to railway collisions.

In February this year, five elephants were tragically killed when hit by a speeding train. The herd included young calves who were unable to move off the tracks in time; the adult elephants surrounded the babies in an attempt to save them, resulting in the death of two babies and three adults.

Only a month ago, another elephant was killed as it tried to cross the tracks in Assam.

These numbers are shocking, especially since authorities have been trying to address the problem for the last five years. New rules came into play last year stating that trains must go no faster than 30 km per hour in elephant corridors, and wildlife officials are supposed to let the Railways department know about movements of herds close to the tracks. In some spots, there are even speakers which emit the sound of buzzing bees in an attempt to deter elephants.

A LadyFreethinker petition urging India’s Minister of Railways to take action on this issue has reached nearly 18,000 signatures.

SIGN: Stop Freight Trains from Killing India’s Elephants

Elephant/human conflict is a massive problem for the nation, as the population expands into key habitats and elephants are forced to interact with people and deal with manmade hazards.

Train tracks cross through 20 of India’s 101 elephant corridors, and the problem is only going to increase as infrastructure — including more railway lines — spreads across the country.

With elephant deaths occurring with increasing regularity, this device can’t come soon enough; however, researchers are waiting until the 2019 monsoon season to commence testing at a site in the Rajaji National Park.

“We will install sensors at sensitive spots, and not everywhere,” said Subrat Kar, the developer of the device. “There are known paths along which the elephants move, so we install sensors on these paths, which detect them through bodyrays, cameras, and vibration.

“The success of this preventive measure depends on detecting the elephants much before the train is there. Three kilometers before roughly translates to 3-4 minutes before.

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Elephant Deaths in Karnataka: Jumbo Hazards

Forty-year-old Ranga was crossing the road near the Mathigodu Elephant Camp in the Nagarhole Na­tional Park in Karnataka’s Kodagu district in the early hours of October 8 when a private bus, bound for Bengaluru from Kerala on NH 766 (that cuts through the Nilgiris biosphere reserve in the Western Ghats abutting the three southern states of Kerala, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu) knocked him down. He died instantly.

The death of Ranga, a tusker, has not only banded the wildlife activists and conservationists to press for stringent punishment under the law but also strengthened Karnataka’s case before the courts for an even tighter clampdown on the movement of vehicles along forest roads, especially at night. While the bus involved in the accident has been seized and a complaint lodged against the driver under the Wildlife Protection Act, there is a feeling among wildlife activists that Karnataka needs to do more to secure the wildlife habitat and aggressively clamp down on potential road kills.

Ranga was a wild bull first found in the Bannerghatta National Park area, near Bengaluru. He had also earned some notoriety for raiding a few crop settlements around the region before the forest officials detained him for training at an elephant camp to be part of the 2019 Mysore carnival—the Mysore dasara festival.

Ranga belonged to the family of Asian elephants, listed as an endangered species by the International Union for Con­servation of Nature (IUCN), whose num­bers have rapidly declined over the years due to a combination of government apathy, heightened poaching, and, now, becoming unsuspecting victims of road and train accidents. Just last year, railway lines crossing elephant habitats in India led to over 200 elephant deaths. With this, India accounts for the largest number of train accidents involving elephants in the world.

In January 2009, a forest officer in Karnataka’s Chamarajanagar district, once notorious for being the camping ground of the forest brigand and elephant poacher Veerappan, raised the red flag first after he counted more than 30 vehicles plying every hour round-the-clock along the highways in the highly sensitive wildlife habitat areas. He brought this to the notice of the district collector who promptly clam­ped a night traffic ban on June 3, 2009, in one of the most critical habitats for elephants, under Section 115 of the Motor Vehicles Act, 1988.

Later succumbing to the pressure from some groups, including politicians from Kerala, Karnataka recalled the ban on June 10, 2009. A PIL was later filed in the Karnataka High Court and on July 28, 2009, a division bench comprising the then chief justice, PD Dinakaran, and Justice VG Sabhahit in an interim order stayed the June 10 order to withdraw the ban on vehicular movement. Pressure groups on both sides—the transport lobby that argued for free vehicular movement on forest roads and wildlife lovers who wanted a total ban—besieged the Karnataka High Court with writ petitions. The Karnataka Forest Department, nature lovers and wildlife enthusiasts got a shot in the arm when the Court ruled in their favour.

Kerala’s plea in August 2009 for lifting the ban on night traffic through the Bandipur National Park in Chamarajanagar district was rejected in March 2010 by a division bench comprising Justice V Gopala Gowda and Justice BS Patil. Kerala had argued that transporters had to choose alternative roads and this entailed more time and cost. While one of the roads passing through the Park—National Highway 212—is from Mysore to Kalpetta via Sultan Bathery, the other, National Highway 67, is from Mysore to Gundlupet. Kerala even brought up the subject of vegetable supply in its defence when it told the Court that people around Wayanad got their daily supply of vegetables from Gundlupet and adjoining areas in Kar­nataka and these were transported at night. The ban had affected the supply of vegetables, it said.

At one point, a representative from the Ministry of Surface Transport, which has the National Highways Authority of India under it, even argued against the Chamarajanagar district collector’s night traffic ban order, saying that the control of national highways vests with it under the National High­ways (Land and Traffic) Act, 2002. However, the bench, instead, threw its weight behind the flora and fauna of the area after watching a detailed video presentation from the forest department that flagged the danger from the rush of vehicles. The National Wildlife Action Plan 2002-16 also provided for certain restrictions on roads in the jungle.

Meanwhile, Special Leave Petitions were filed in the Supreme Court by the affected parties from Kerala to reconsider the night traffic ban. The petitioners included the Kerala government, the Nilgiri-Wayanad National Highway, Railway Action Council and the Ooty Hotel Owners Association. In January this year, the Supreme Court constituted a five-member committee representing the centre and the three southern states. The committee, after extensive field visits and interviews with locals, recommended that the status quo be maintained for the time being. The committee, with members from Kerala, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu and the secretaries of the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change as well as the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways, was asked to work on an alternative to the restrictions imposed on the highway running through these forest areas.

The Supreme Court observed that the committee should not only keep in mind the convenience of the people living around the forest areas but also ensure that the original inhabitants in one of the world’s most eco-sensitive critical habitats are not disturbed by noise, honking and screeching of tyres.

A Karnataka minister’s casual comment that elevated roads through the national park could be one alternative forced a slew of online petitions that went viral. These hit out against the HD Kumaraswamy-led JD (S)-Congress coalition government in Karnataka. Kumaraswamy himself applied the brakes by saying that the 9 pm to 6 am night-time ban on vehicle movement in Bandipur would continue. To cement his support to the green cause, his office followed up with the statement that the idea of an elevated road in this area (Bandipur) was not feasible.

Just a few weeks before that, the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways had sent a note to the state chief secretary seeking the state’s nod for lifting the night traffic ban and approval for a project to construct elevated roads or bio-flyovers on NH 212.

Kumaraswamy went to the extent of demanding a night traffic ban for wild­life areas across the state, even beyond the protected areas. “I feel there should be no plying of vehicles during night time in wildlife areas,” he said in a statement.

The ban on traffic from 9 pm to 6 am in Bandipur Tiger Reserve has become a bone of contention between Karnataka and Kerala. Karna­taka has so far resisted pressure from different lobbies. The nine-hour ban on NH 212 was imposed by the Karnataka High Court on March 9, 2010.

Wildlife conservationists have called upon the state government to take im­mediate measures to prevent continuing wildlife deaths on the Kannur-Mysuru inter-state highway that traverses al­most 12 km through the Nagarhole Tiger Reserve. The highway stretch is a significant threat to wildlife and most commercial drivers drive recklessly. Although the speed limit is 30 kmph on this stretch, nobody follows it and so a night traffic ban should be enforced, they argue.

Ranga’s untimely death has also increased the call to shift the eight elephant camps run by the forest department outside the tiger reserves and national parks. The state has more than 100 elephants in captivity spread across the camps, most of them in the critical wildlife habitats. The National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) found that most state transport buses that were allowed to ply in the night were only 50 percent full. Even accident rates had fallen by half due to the ban.

“Any highway expansion inside the forest area will mean a death warrant for the wildlife,” says Prem Mitra, chairman of green conservation group A Rocha, which has done a lot of work on the ecology of the Asian elephant and elephant-human conflicts in the state. “Tusker Ranga’s death could have been avoided if the ban had been implemented in right earnest,” he adds and points out that the government must put up speed-breakers and effective signage and aggressively campaign for wildlife conservation measures.

The apex court at one point had directed Karnataka and Kerala to sit across the table and sort out the issues by arriving at a consensus. But the two could not come to a meeting point. The Court had planned to hear the case again in January 2016 but it was postponed after the counsel for Kerala, Gopal Subramanium, informed the apex court that his state government would go for an amicable solution that does not disturb the environment or wildlife movement. Kerala is still hopeful that the apex court will come to its rescue—four days before Ranga’s death on the forest road, it sought the highest court’s help to lift the ban on night traffic, at least for six months, citing flood havoc.

With pressure from so many lobbies choking critical wildlife habitats, it seems like a long road to nowhere for the inhabitants of the jungle.

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Elephant corridors getting fragmented: Sharma

New Delhi, Jul 30 (PTI) Traditional corridors of elephants and their habitats have been “fragmented” due to utilisation of forest land for agricultural purposes and development works, including construction of irrigation dams and railway lines, the government said today.

In a written reply in the Rajya Sabha, Minister of State for Environment Mahesh Sharma said this fragmentation has caused “human-elephant” conflict.

In 2017-18 (up to November 2017), 275 people have been killed due to “human-elephant” conflict while an ex gratia amount of Rs 590.76 lakh has been awarded, he said.

The minister said in 2016-17, 515 persons were killed and a compensation of Rs 1477.959 lakh was given.

“The traditional corridors of elephants and their habitats have been fragmented due to utilisation of forest land for agricultural purposes, development works like hydro-electric power process, irrigation dams, canals, transmission lines, rail lines, roads etc. Such fragmentation has caused human elephant conflict,” Sharma said.

He said securing of elephant corridors, including acquisition of land and removal of encroachments along the corridors, is the responsibility of state governments, although the ministry provides financial and technical assistance to states for this.

The ministry has requested all states through letters sent on August 24 and November 17 last year, and May 1 this year to protect elephant corridors for the long-term conservation of Asian elephants, Sharma said.

He said the ministry has also advised them to acquire land for this purpose, if required.

“Some states have secured some elephant corridors by procuring the private lands or by relocating the families from the areas falling within these corridors,” the minister said.

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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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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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Encroachment threatens natural elephant corridor prompting fears of human-elephant conflict

The natural elephant corridor at Dadzu-Lumia or Dadzeeling between Tippi and Bhalukpong in West Kameng district is under threat because of rampant encroachment and proposal by the Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) to establish a permanent camp.


Some weeks ago, the Forest department started plantation on the encroached land, halting the encroachment for the time being.


The corridor, traditionally known as “Jowa Olgu Fow” (Burnt Rice), a sacred land of the Hrussos (the local community) is a critical linkage between the elephant habitats of the Pakke Tiger Reserve and Doimara Reserve Forest.


During winters, when the volume of water in the Kameng River decreases, the elephants cross the river near Dhuwang Nallah before they move on to Doimara Reserve Forest area.


Forest officials say that human interference in the natural corridor will inevitably lead to human-elephant conflict, as the elephants are known to frequent its natural corridor.


However, the locals say that they are left with no option other than handing it over to the ITBP as the Forest department has not been able to secure it from encroachment.


Locals say that they will leave up to 500 metres of the corridor untouched for free movement of the elephants.


To support their claim over the land, the Hrussos say that the place was named JowaOlgu Fow after granaries were burnt following a feud with Khusum Buso, a neighbouring tribe in the 15th century.
“The land is traditionally ours. One can go back to the history of the area which goes back to as far as the 15th century. It is our community land and the Forest department came much later. Till 1973-74, the area was the winter resort of our queen Lumum Dususow”, says one of the leaders of the community.


The ITBP wants to take over the area covering the natural corridor. The ITBP wants more than 70 hectares of land that encompasses the entire corridor which will include a firing range. The forest department has shot down the land clearance proposal but the villagers are keen that the ITBP camp actually comes up as it will stop encroachment altogether.


The Bhalukpong administration and the forest department had earlier cleared the encroachment, mostly jhum cultivation. The locals say that encroachment continues even after the intervention of the government departments.


The Forest department in Tippi says that there has been numerous times when the elephants have destroyed jhum fields and construction that within their corridor.


The department fears that if the natural corridor is disturbed, the animals might venture into Tippi and Bhalukpong townships, adjacent towns near the corridor.


Elephants moving through the area had been entering human settlements in the nearby villages of Ramda, Khuppi and Kimi, causing damage to property and posing a threat to human lives, according to a report “Right of Passage”, published by the Wildlife Trust of India, released in August 2017.

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Elephant destroys camera-trap pole put up by forest department

MYSURU: A camera trap put up by the forest department to track the movement of wild animals has captured a wild elephant destroying a camera-trap pole in the forest area under the Nagarahole national park area. In the visuals, a wild tusker is found hitting the camera-trap pole, which has gone viral among foresters. Wildlife experts have pointed out that these pictures are the clear proof for extent wild animals dislike human intervention in their natural habitats.

According to the sources in the forest department, these visuals emerged at the time of a recent inspections inside the Nagarahole National Park area. “These pictures were captured in the camera traps put up inside the deep forest. Many times, wild animals attack the camera trap poles in the forest as they dislike them. It is not an issue. These visuals reflect that generally wild animals don’t like the machine installation in their natural habitats which disturbs them. But camera traps are not dangerous and helps the department in numerous ways,” said an officer who wished to be unnamed.

Wildlife activists also echo similar opinion. According to K Bhagyalaskhmi, an activist, these kind of incidents happening inside the Nagarahole forest zone since 1990’s when camera traps first deployed in the forests. “Pachyderms are very intelligent creatures. We can’t estimate that what is the actual reason for destroying the camera traps. But this wild tusker don’t want this unknown object in his natural habitat. Hence he was kicking by his forelegs once and next pushing and kicking by his hind legs,” she said.

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Appeal to barricade open wells

The Wildlife Society of Odisha has urged the state government to barricade open wells with a view to saving animals, especially the elephants, which fall into them and die.

A large number of elephants and other wildlife animals are falling into open wells, and in many cases, this leads to their death, said society secretary Biswajit Mohanty on Monday.

On October 29, an elephant calf died after falling into an open well at Madhapur under Athmalik forest division in Angul district. The carcass was discovered after two to three days. On November 3, another jumbo calf fell into an open well near Naharkanta under the Tangi forest range in Khurda district. The calf survived as it was rescued.

On November 27, an adult female elephant that had fallen into an open well at Tapursingha under the Athmalik forest division was rescued after a marathon 10-hour operation. But unfortunately, the same elephant fell into another open well a kilometre away the next day. It died before being rescued. The society had carried out a survey, which indicated that since December 12, 2012 there had been 63 open well incidents, in which 85 animals had fallen. While 42 of them were elephants, the rest were other animals.

On October 26, two bear cubs fell into an open well near Badadeula in Koraput municipality limits. Both were rescued, but one died and the other got badly injured.

While most of the 85 animals were rescued, 12 animals, including seven elephants, died. Other wild animals, which had fallen into open wells, included sloth bear, rattle, pangolin, spotted and barking deer, wild boar, monitor lizard, jungle cat and fishing cat, the survey indicated.

"We have already urged the state forest and environment minister to take measures to address the problem through memorandums, along with a proposal to barricade all such wells in the elephant habitats," Mohanty said.

"We are disappointed that despite our repeated pleas since four years, no action has been taken to barricade these open wells," Mohanty further said.

According to the wildlife society, not more than Rs 1.5 crore is needed to barricade 5,000 open wells in the state. "This is a small amount considering the fact that the state has about 2,000 elephants," Mohanty said.

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This fund-raising rally is making efforts to save endangered Asian elephants

Waris Ahluwalia

Global warming and other hazardous environmental changes (mainly massive loss of habitats) has caused elephant numbers to plummet by 90 per cent in the last few years.

In the wake to safeguard the endangered species, the Elephant Family is investing all their efforts into protecting Asian elephants and their habitats. The non-profit organisation that has the royal patronage of The Prince of Wales and The Duchess of Cornwall as royal presidents, has supported over 160 field projects in six elephant range states: India, Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar and Cambodia.

One such project is a series titled ‘Travels to my Elephant’, a rally the Elephant Family started back in 2015, where racers traveled across India to spotlight the plight of Asian elephants while raising funds for Indian elephant corridors.

The Elephant Family is back with a second rally this year, where 85 adventurers will embark on a 500km journey across Rajasthan in aid of the endangered Asian elephant.

To celebrate the second edition of the rally, Ruth Ganesh (Elephant Family), Ben Elliot (Quintessentially Foundation) and actor Waris Ahluwalia (Global Explorer for The Luxury Collection) hosted the send-off party in partnership with The Luxury Collection Hotels and Resorts for the racers and VIP supporters at One Horse Guards in London last night. During the evening, guests sampled limited-edition cocktails designed by The Luxury Collection London properties, using House of Waris teas.

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15-month-long ‘Gaj Yatra’ to promote elephant conservation

Union Forest Minister Harsh Vardhan on Saturday launched a 15-month-long campaign — Gaj Yatra — to raise awareness about the shrinking space for India’s wild elephants and their corridors.
Over the next 15 months, the Gaj Yatra will do roadshows across 12 elephant states.

The Wildlife Trust of India (WTI), which is leading the campaign, also launched the second edition of its publication “Right to Passage”, which found and mapped a total of 101 elephant corridors in 2017.

The last 2005 edition of “Right to Passage” had declared a total of 88 elephant corridors across 22 elephant states.

Gaj Yatra, which is partnered by the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW), is the biggest-ever event planned around India’s wild elephants.

Harsh Vardhan, WTI Executive Director and CEO Vivek Menon, and actor and WTI Brand Ambassador Dia Mirza flagged off the campaign marking the World Elephant Day.

“In the recent past, a lot has been spoken about how elephants are being endangered and the measures that need to be taken to protect them. We are hopeful that through this campaign, man-elephant conflicts will reduce,” the minister said.

According to experts, Asian elephants now occupy a meagre 3.5 per cent of their historical range. The vanishing corridors or passages within the forests through which the animal migrates without human disturbance is the biggest stumbling block in the way of conservation.

“When WTI produced the first edition of ‘Right of Passage’ in 2005, we had mapped 88 elephant corridors. In this second edition, there are 101, which shows that elephant habitats have become more fragmented,” said Vivek Menon, adding that the Gaj Yatra campaign aimed to take “Gajah” (elephant) to the “Prajah” (people).

He added the Asian elephant was a keystone species on whose broad back so much of India’s rich biodiversity rested.

“We share our country with the largest number of Asian elephants. However, in recent years our wild lands have been steadily destroyed and degraded, posing a serious threat to elephants,” said Mirza.
She also participated in a walk and run event organised on the occasion, along with children.

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