With political outfits in Gudalur calling for extreme measures by the Forest Department to deal with the increasing negative human-elephant interactions in O’Valley in Gudalur, the department has conducted a preliminary inquiry into the latest incident where a 44-year-old woman was killed. The inquiry found that this was another stray incident precipitated by the action of local communities.
Four people have been killed in separate incidents by different elephants in O’Valley since May and the fourth death was on Thursday.
According to sources, a group of six elephants comprising a single herd, including two calves were in the area where the incident occurred. The forest department staff, including teams of anti-depredation squad watchers and anti-poaching watchers were monitoring the herd, when a group of residents began shouting. The panicked herd split into two groups. While most of the elephants escaped into the forest, one female elephant and her calf which got split off from the herd were unable to do so, sources added.
The management of the tea estate where the victim was working had also been informed of the incident, but had failed to adequately communicate the danger from the herd.
The animal is believed to have attacked the woman when she strayed too close, despite the presence of staff.
Apart from the victim, two forest staff members, both anti-depredation squad members, were charged at and barely managed to escape, officials added, calling upon people from O’Valley to cooperate with the department’s efforts to manage the negative interactions between the animals and the humans.
Tarsh Thekaekara, founder of the Shola Trust and one of the members of the committee formed by the State government to study and recommend steps to reduce negative human - elephant interactions in O’Valley, said that “relocating all the people or removing all the elephants from the landscape is not a feasible solution to the problem.”
“Coexistence is inevitable. Individual elephant-based management could significantly reduce negative interactions. People demand the capture of some elephants but there is no hard data on individual behavioral profiles to be able to successfully identify and translocate problematic animals,” he said.
K. Ramesh, scientist from the Wildlife Institute of India, another member of the committee, said that a few recommendations had been included in the report submitted to the Forest Department to mitigate negative interactions in the area. He said that among the recommendations was to locally translocate individual houses into zones where elephant movement can be controlled.
Officials said that among the other recommendations was to locally translocate elephants that are known to be aggressive towards humans while also erecting electric fences along strategic locations to prevent the entry of elephants into certain areas.
