Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Sep 27, 2007
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Online edition of India's National Newspaper Thursday, Sep 27, 2007 ePaper |
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Tamil Nadu
KOLKATA: A rise in the population of animals in north Bengal’s wildlife sanctuaries might be good news for conservationists; but it has its flip side. Concerns over straying of animals into adjoining areas because of space constraints are deepening and the killing of two wild bison and a leopard within the past week in the region, allegedly by villagers living close to the sanctuaries is symptomatic of the problem. The State’s wildlife authorities are working on a plan to chalk out eco-sensitive zones in the reserve forests adjoining the national parks and have studied local land patterns for mapping out “secure” corridors for elephants, who seem to be the most common victims of animal-human conflicts. Six such corridors were recently short-listed out of a total of 14, West Bengal’s Chief Conservator of Forests (Wildlife) Ujjal Bhattacharjee told The Hindu here. Recent estimates of the elephant population in the region ranges between 330 and 350, more or less stationary with the mortality rate cancelling out growth rate. Many of the unnatural deaths have been attributed to animals being knocked down by trains passing along a 170 km railway stretch across the region. A committee comprising State wildlife officials, environmentalists and representatives of the railways, working on ways to resolve the problem, are confronted with the argument that slowing down train movement could cause delays in freight transportation. Electrocution of elephants due to the live wire fencing, set up to keep at bay the animals straying into these areas is not uncommon. But local authorities are stretched to keep a check on illegal tapping of power for energising such fencing, officials add. The growth rate in the bison population in north Bengal, estimated to be around 15 per cent every two years (the total population is around 2000), has only added to problems of space availability within the national parks as well as the growing requirement for palatable fodder. Consequently, there has been an increase in cases of the animals straying into neighbouring territorial reserved forests as the bison grazes both in grassland and woodland. To prevent this, the wildlife authorities have finalised a scheme designating eco-sensitive zones in the territorial forest. “The National Forest Policy after all places emphasis on bio-diversity generation rather than revenue generation”, Mr. Bhattacharjee said. Dialogue is also on with tea plantation representatives to explore whether the plucking of tea leaves can be put on hold in areas where a leopardess has given birth to its litter — the preferred areas being the drains that criss-cross the tea estates and the labour lines.
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