Tamil Nadu   

Elephants enter plantations

Black beauty: A herd of elephants that strayed into plantations on the border of Sholayar and Kallar estates, 7 km from Valparai in Coimbatore district, on Sunday.

VALPARAI: A total of 18 elephants are stranded at plantations on the border of Sholayar and Kallar estates, near Valparai on Sunday. Residents are resisting their entry to human habitations by throwing stones and other things at them.

Forest personnel have been trying to avoid man-elephant conflict by deploying kumkis (trained elephants) to turn away wild elephants.

People fear that they might damage their houses in the night.

Range Officer G. Sivamani said: “We have set up a temporary camp to prevent any kind of torture of the elephants and driving them safely into nearby forests using kumkis.”

He said that fair price shops near labourers quarters were the targets of the elephants, as they like rice. Mr. Sivamani said the department had been asking the estate managements to construct proper buildings to store rice.

The building for fair price shop should be stronger and ideally away from residential area.

This is the normal period when elephants enter plantations because of changes in the vegetation structure of forests, according to wildlife biologists. They say that estate managements should not allow outsiders and tourists to stay in plantations. “We can educate native people on avoiding conflicts with elephants. It would be very difficult to sensitise outsiders to the need to avoid conflict with elephants,” they say.

They want the forest department officials to stay near the herd in the night. “If they leave the place by 5 p.m. or 6 p.m. people will start teasing the elephant.”

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