The Hindu : Living with the elephants

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, Nov 23, 2003

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National

Living with the elephants

By Prafulla Das

BHUBANESWAR NOV. 22. Look the other way if you see a herd of elephants walking past you in Orissa. Or else, you might get trampled.

These are not pearls of wisdom flowing from the grannies. The Orissa Government is now advising the people of the State on how to tackle the elephantine menace that has claimed 195 lives in the past five years. Some 30 people have been injured too in elephant attacks in the past five years.

Though there are just about 1,840 elephants living under the vast canopy of forests in the State, the rapid balding of the forest cover has made many of the pachyderms homeless and a trifle insecure.

As a result, more and more of them are straying into human habitations in districts such as Keonjhar, Sambalpur, Dhenkanal and Sundargarh. Last week, a herd from the Chandaka elephant sanctuary that is adjacent to Bhubaneswar strayed into the Kanan Vihar area of the city. The pachyderms stayed put, while a police team waited overnight. A concerned State administration has now brought out a list of dos and don'ts for the people. Some of the pieces of advice are simple — `stay away from elephants', `don't get out of home after evening hours', `keep vigil on the elephants during night' and `switch on bright lights and torchlight on the straying elephants to drive them away'.

In the villages, the elephants can be driven away by sounding cymbals. However, there should be an exit route available to the elephants. But there is a word of caution: "If the elephant happens to be a lone tusker near the village outskirts, allow him to get back into the forest quietly. Since the tuskers get irritated by firecrackers or bright lights, it is better to avoid such things."

The tribal people, who are some of the worst sufferers, have been advised not to store fermented rice and `handia' and other country-made liquor inside homes as the elephants may get tempted to try them. An intoxicated elephant may cause more damage than one that is sober.

However, environmentalists have a different opinion on the issue. "The government is treating the symptoms as the disease," said one. They also question the government's methods, for encroachment within elephant sanctuaries and loss of elephant corridors have primarily created the menace. "While the government makes little effort to restore corridors and evict encroachers from elephant habitats, advising people not to get out of homes is ridiculous," said Biswajit Mohanty, secretary of the Wildlife Society of Orissa, a non-governmental organisation.

Though Rs. 70 lakhs remains with the authorities for the resettlement of four villages within the Chandaka sanctuary for some years now, nothing has been done so far, Mr. Mohanty said. "The need of the hour is to take measures to contain the elephants in their habitats."

About the official figures that 98 elephants had been killed in the State in the past five years, Mr. Mohanty said that this proves that poaching had not been controlled despite the tall promises made by the authorities.

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