E-Paper
Non-conventional light posts to stop tusker attacks
West Bengal's wildlife authorities are now hoping to use non-conventional energy to prevent elephants from straying into human habitations.
After radio collars, designated feeding zones and an exclusive pathway, West Bengal's wildlife authorities are hoping to use non-conventional energy to prevent elephants from straying into human habitations.
The authorities want to use non-conventional energy sources to power light posts along jungle roads that often come under attacks from elephants. The idea is to scare away elephants with blinding lights.
The use of electrified wire fence to stop animals from straying is not uncommon, but the use of non-conventional energy to light up forest stretches is novel.
The state forest department has entered into an agreement with the non-conventional energy agency to set up light posts in the jungles of Purulia, Bankura, Midnapore (west) and Jalpaiguri districts.
The project could come into effect from April in 12 forest villages, according to renewable energy expert Shaktipada Gonchowdhury. The lights would function on biogas to be produced in the villages.
Earlier, wildlife authorities had decided that movement of wild elephants in the jungles of eastern India would be tracked using the Global Positioning System (GPS) to forewarn against their frequent invasion of human habitations and farmsteads.
The states of West Bengal, Jharkhand and Orissa -- which have about 1,400 elephants in the wild -- would jointly undertake an ambitious project to put GPS collars on groups of these animals.
The exercise would help not only track the movement of the animals but also study their habits and routes they take to travel between the forests that straddle the three states.
Forest villages in southern and northern West Bengal are plagued by attacks from wild elephants that emerge from the Dalma forest in Jharkhand in search of food and destroy paddy crops and huts.
Villagers chase them away with flaming torches, the noise of crackers and beating of drums. However, the elephants seem to be losing their fear of such objects, say wildlife experts.
Similar problems existed in the forest villages in Orissa's Simlipal area.
Wild elephants killed 252 people in West Bengal in the last five years, and 122 of the animals have also died, many allegedly poisoned by villagers.
The severity of the elephant attacks had forced West Bengal to consider giving the pachyderms their own travel corridor through the jungles to help them avoid contact with humans.
But the plan for the 'elephant highway' and an 'elephant habitat' were shelved because of the huge costs involved.
