Following a spate of recent incidents where humans have been injured, and even killed after getting too close to gaur, the Nilgiris North Forest Division and the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF-India) are to begin studying gaur population in the Nilgiris and come up with mitigation efforts to prevent further incidents.
According to Forest Department officials, five people have been injured, and three people have been killed after straying too close to the animals since September of 2016. The gaur, also known as the Indian Bison, are found throughout the Nilgiris and some of them weigh over a tonne.
Forest Department officials said that the animals only retaliate when humans get too near to them. However, due to the perceived increase in the localised population of the animal, combined with developmental pressures, the number of reported confrontations between humans and the animals have increased.
D. Boominathan, landscape co-ordinator for WWF-India, said that the forest department and the organisations were looking to study the problems related with conflict between gaur and people in a holistic manner. “We are looking to study their population, distribution, conflict hot-spots, movement patterns and other parameters and adopt mitigation strategies and reduce conflict,” he said.
The department has set up multiple camera traps and is tracking the movement of lone animals, especially those that have been forced out from the main herd.
S. Kalanidhi, District Forest Officer (Nilgiris North Division), said that the gaur population in parts of the Nilgiris was steadily on the increase, and that this was resulting in individuals and localised populations being “dispersed” into the increasingly prevalent human habitations that are arising near forests inhabited by the animals.
The department is open to a variety of mitigation efforts. It is hoped that the study will yield patterns of movement associated with gaur herds, which will help the department come up with solutions to mitigate conflict. “We are open to all possibilities, including making alterations to human habitations that lie along their corridor, while on the other hand we can also translocate individual animals that are problematic,” Mr. Kalanidhi said.
There are also concerns that the gaur herds are moving into towns and hamlets in search of food. The department is open to the idea of suppressing invasive species, such as eucalyptus and wattle, and allowing grasslands to take their place.
