FRONT PAGE | Friday, October 30, 2009 | Email | Print | 
Brahmaputra water turns red with jumbo blood
Sanat K Chakraborty | Guwahati
Retaliatory killings of elephants are increasing in Assam, as human-elephant conflict intensifies on the northern bank of Brahmaputra, home to India’s largest Asian elephant population.
Since September, at least seven elephants — three female, two male and two male calves — have been killed either by poisoning or electrocution, while four persons, including a 55-year-old woman, lost their lives in elephant attacks. Last week, a full-grown female elephant was found dead — suspected to be a case of poisoning - at Orangajuli tea estate in Udalguri district on Indo-Bhutan border.
People in Assam, where they perform rituals to mourn elephant deaths, are often found targeting the animals as the herd forages into human habitations for food, and often become targets of human wrath.
An adult elephant requires 400 kg of food per day. Tea gardens along the foothills of Indo-Bhutan borders, many of which fall on the way of elephant corridors, are particularly vulnerable to elephant depredations, and most of the recent cases of human-elephant conflicts have been reported in those areas, a forest official said.
Incidents of elephant depredations and human-elephant conflict rise between August and January.
“One of the major causes of conflict is gradual loss and fragmentation of elephant ranges and their migratory routes as a result of deforestation and human encroachment of forest areas,” said Soumen Dey of WWF, which has been working on the North Bank Landscape (NBL) conservation programme.
NBL, which is globally recognised as a ‘site of high species diversity’, has an estimated population of 1,800 elephants (according to the Project Elephant), apart from being home to world-famous one-horn Rhino and Royal Bengal Tigers.
The NBL comprises about 40,000 sq km, out of which nearly 16,000 sq km area is believed to be used by elephants. A sizeable area of that is under human encroachment.
Dey said such incidents of human-elephant conflict would continue, considering the ground situation. “Our efforts should be directed to minimize the conflict by educating people about the problem and preparing them to deal with it with care and sensitivity,” he said.
In the past few years, WWF, in collaboration with the forest department and local NGOs, has come up with a detailed approach to deal with HEC issues.
“Preparedness and pre-emptive mobilisation of anti-depredation squad (ADS) are the two key tools that can be used to mitigate the HEC,” Dey said, citing successful application of these methods in the past.
The innovative WWF approach, which is also now known as ‘Sonitpur model’, is based on ‘critical intelligence gathering’ of elephant movements, instead of a knee-jerk reaction to elephant forage.
It’s simple and practical. The moment a herd is sighted, the ADS is immediately alerted, which keeps on monitoring its movement. Should the herd move closer to human habitat, the squad — comprising forest department personnel and WWF-trained NGOs and volunteers — prepares for ‘anti-depredation’ drive.
Trained domesticated female elephants, known as kunkis, are used to spearhead the drive against the foraging wild pachyderms.
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