A Divisional Forest Officer and a Range Officer were detained by people for hours on Sunday as attacks by wild animals on cattle continued in Wayanad.
Eight head of cattle have been killed in such attacks in the past 10 days in the district. A grazing cow is suspected to have been attacked by a tiger at Panavally on the fringes of the North Wayanad forest division and another was killed at Kalloor in the Wayanad Wildlife Sanctuary on Sunday evening. A. Shanavas, Divisional Forest Officer, North Wayanad forest division, and A.K. Gopalan, Range officer, Sulthan Bathery forest range under the sanctuary, were those detained.
On Saturday night, a cow was killed by a tiger at Pilakavu, a hamlet inside the sanctuary. A mob vandalised a building under construction for a forest station at Naikatty and set fire to a dry bamboo grove at Pilakavu following the incident.
For the second consecutive day, villagers blocked traffic on the Kozhikode-Kollegal National Highway 212 for hours on Sunday morning demanding protection for their life and property.
Though the Forest officials and the district administration have been able to address the problem to an extent by promising fair compensation to the villagers for the loss suffered and setting up cages to trap the animals, the villagers are frustrated by the lack of a permanent solution.
The morale of the Forest officials is also at a low following the recent violent incidents. “We cannot work independently as we may face an attack by a mob any moment,” a Forest official said.
The recurring attacks on cattle have become a nightmare for the villagers, especially in the wake of a rumour doing the rounds that the Forest Department is planning to declare the sanctuary a tiger reserve.
Many a time, there have been open confrontations between the villagers and the Forest officials. The villagers in the district had a pro-conservation attitude till the rumour spread but, the recent violent incidents show the change in their attitude, a Forest official said. If this continues, it is feared that what happened in Sariska tiger reserve in Rajasthan will be repeated here, a Forest official said.
According to official data, 37 attacks on cattle have been reported in the sanctuary so far this year.
The figure was 83 in 2011 and 41 in 2010.
The participation of the villagers is essential to forest wealth conservation, especially with the advent of summer, as the gregarious flowering of bamboo groves has led to an accumulation of combustible materials, a source said.
Meanwhile, a meeting of representatives of the people, of action councils, and Forest officials, convened by District Collector K. Gopalakrishna Bhatt, here on Sunday directed top Forest officials to submit a comprehensive plan to tackle the problem before the visit of Chief Minister Oommen Chandy on November 30 to discuss the issue.
It also decided to constitute a monitoring committee of Forest officials, representatives of political parties, and members of local administrative bodies at the forest range level, and trap the wild cats by administering tranquillizer shots and releasing them outside the district.
Mr. Bhatt requested the cooperation of the people for the independent working of the Forest personnel.
