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Power fencing to avoid human-elephant conflict in West Bengal town
West Bengal accounts for the second-highest number of man-elephant conflict incidents with at least 430 people having been killed by elephants in West Bengal between 2015-16 and 2019-20
The West Bengal forest department is setting up around 12 km of power fencing to protect a town that has come under repeated elephant attacks over the past one year, resulting in five deaths.
Officials said that over the past one-year, Jhargram has been in the news where elephant attacks have shot up. While at least 25 people have been killed in the Jhargram forest division, at least five deaths took place inside the municipal town, they said.
“We want to reduce the interface between humans and elephants so that the chances of conflict also get reduced. We can’t confine elephants within a small patch of forest because that is not scientific. But we can insulate human habitats. This would allow the animals to move freely but they won’t enter human settlements. This is one-of-its-kind and we are confident that it would reduce human-elephant conflict to a certain extent. We are taking up 12 km power fencing in Jhargram town,” said a senior official of the state forest department.
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The state forest department is also planning to create ‘elephant oases’– forest patches with rich sources of fodder and water– to keep the herds away from human settlements.
“We have planned to come up with eight elephant oases. These are forest areas within elephant corridors where we would increase fodder and water for the herds. Work on three such areas, all on the western part of the state– Lalgarh, Tapan and Abhaya– will start soon,” said a senior forest official.
West Bengal accounts for the second-highest number of man-elephant conflict incidents with at least 430 people having been killed by elephants in West Bengal between 2015-16 and 2019-20.
With conservation efforts, the elephant population in the state has shot up from around 175 in 1989 to about 700. In North Bengal, the elephant population is more than 600.
“We are also taking up aggressive management of human-elephant conflict. We have got permission from the Centre to capture 10 problem elephants. Three have already been captured,” said the forest official quoted above.
