Man-animal conflicts claim 14 lives in Kerala this year

Thiruvananthapuram: Last week, a herd of wild elephants had strayed into the land of a small farmer P Vijayan in Kanjikode (Palakkad) town and it took authorities nearly three hours to force the jumbos back into the forests

Thiruvananthapuram: Last week, a herd of wild elephants had strayed into the land of a small farmer P Vijayan in Kanjikode (Palakkad) town and it took authorities nearly three hours to force the jumbos back into the forests. But a lot of damage was already done by then as the farmer lost at least 500 fully-grown bananas among other plants.

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On Monday, Vijayan lost his cow in a leopard attack, prompting forest officials to set a cage to trap the strayed animal.

At least 15 kms away from the farm, a tribal woman, Anjala Devi (42), was trampled to death on Friday while she had gone to the fringe areas of the forest to collect firewood.

While 20 people were killed in various elephant attacks in the state last year, 14 were killed in a period of five months this year, forest officials said, admitting that the man-animal conflict was on the rise amid the coronavirus-induced lockdown.

Thousands of farmers, especially those living close to the forest areas, have quit farming in the last five years due to frequent raids by elephants, wild boars, monkeys and other animals. During the lockdown, the absence of humans has only made the fields a favourite ground of the wild animals.

“What is really heart-breaking is that they attack the farm when it is ready for harvest. Every year, we face huge losses and finally, we decided to stop farming,” one P Velayudhan in Wayanad in north Kerala said, adding that old techniques to ward off wild animals are no longer fruitful and that they have to abide by instructions from forest officials too.

“There are conflicting reports about wild elephants but only a few of them are trouble makers. Animals in musth will be aggressive. Rogue ones... we radio collar them and track their movement quite often,” Palakkad divisional forest officer Kurra Srinivas said, adding that a healthy co-existence is must for both animals and humans for a healthy environment.

In the hill destination of Munnar in Idukki district, a herd of jumbos often raid closed vegetable shops among others every evening. Feeling hassled, locals have started keeping bananas and other vegetables outside their shops to avert any damage to their shops.

Keeping in mind that these jumbos have started freely moving around the town, even in the urban pockets during the lockdown, authorities have begun deploying forest guards as a precautionary measure to avoid any conflict with humans.

These guards, however, admitted that fire crackers or fire balls are not enough to scare the animals.

Officials also admitted that measures such as building trenches, solar fences and rail segregations have failed to prevent these animals from crossing over to areas of human settlement. Elephants often use dry branches to break solar fences, they added.

According to wildlife experts, jumbo straying can be contained by keeping the elephant corridors intact. They believe that one of the main reasons for elephant attack in Idukki district is encroachment along the Anamalai-Periyar tiger reserve elephant corridor. Shrinking of their habitat and corridors force these jumbos to stray into human settlements, they said.

“We need a healthy co-existence of both. If we respect the needs of both, we can lower the tension between them,” Dr P S Esa, a leading wildlife expert, said.

Kerala has a robust forest cover of 29% of the total area and also has a healthy wildlife population with 190 tigers and 5,706 elephants.

However, increasing forest encroachment in several parts of the state is becoming a source of concern for forest officials.