The Koundinya wildlife sanctuary, spread over 357.6 square km in the Palamaner and Kuppam Assembly constituencies, is fast turning into a safe haven for wild elephants with unprecedented rehabilitation measures, including waterholes, tanks and check-dams.
The terrain with hills and valleys is rich in flora, and forest officials are leaving no stone unturned to prevent the movement of jumbos towards fields and human habitations.
According to officials, the Mordana reservoir in the deep forests of Palamaner on the Tamil Nadu border is playing a vital role in meeting the water requirements of the jumbos in the sanctuary.
For their free movement in the reserves, the Forest Department has created as many as 300 waterholes at different places, coupled with over 100 tanks and over 300 small ponds.
The Kuppam region had witnessed the worst crop raids between 2010-14 due to failure of rain, and parched water resources in the sanctuary. However, the November 2015 downpour, followed by copious rains in 2016 and 2017 had recharged the groundwater table remarkably. While the crop raids by resident elephants had almost come to an end, crop damage elsewhere in the region is getting reported due to raids by wandering herds from Karnataka and T.N.
The officials have launched an awareness campaign urging farmers to avoid sugarcane, paddy and banana crops. A senior official observed that these three crops are “like biryani to the jumbos.”
The farmers are being constantly encouraged to go in for alternative crops such as castor oil, mulberry and corn. “Jumbos do not care for these crops,” the official said.
In order to halt the movement of wild elephants, the officials had widely propagated the methods of using “honeybee sound machines,” spraying of chilli powder along field paths.
Permanent measures
Elephant-proof trenches were dug in Ramakuppam, Gudupalle and Kuppam mandals, covering a distance of over 300 kilometers. Solar fencing is present at vast stretches in the rural areas, preventing the pachyderms from entering fields and human habitations. In the streams and rivulets, concrete pillars were erected.
Fall in compensation
The scientific measures to prevent the man-animal conflict had resulted in a drastic fall in the quantum of crop compensation during the last five years.
In 2014, a sum of ₹75 lakh was paid as compensation for crop losses; followed by ₹45 lakh in 2015; ₹22 lakh in 2016 and ₹19 lakh in 2017.
