The attack on a three-year-old boy, Sk. Arshad, in the forest near Yerragondapalem in Prakasam district by a wild boar on Saturday has brought to the fore the intensity of human-animal conflict.
The incident came close on the heels of the reported straying of wild cats into the tribal hamlet of Satuthanda near Dornala in Markapur division last week.
While wild boars are multiplying in the wake of the dwindling number of predators, farmers are encroaching upon their natural habitat by growing crops on the foothills, forcing them to stray into human habitations.
The attack was not an isolated one, as a 60-year-old Chenchu tribal Naganna was mauled to death by a bear near Chinabodu, 30 km from Yerragondapalem in October 2013 and another 45-year-old tribal, A. Musalaiah, was seriously injured in an attack by a pair of bears near Garepentagudem in Pullalachervu mandal in June 2012.
Farmers in the villages close to Yerragondapalem live in constant fear of big cats after they spotted movement of leopards at Ganjivaripalli in June last year.
“With most farms situated on the Nallamalla foothills, it is not unusual for animals like wild boars and bears to come down in search of food and damage maize, groundnut and other crops,” says Markapur Divisional Forest Officer D. Jayachandra Reddy.
“We are educating farmers on ways to ward off wild animals without using electrical fences, as they are threat also to cattle and farmers themselves,” Mr. Reddy says. Wild boars and bears can be kept at bay by burning red chillies, as they are very sensitive to pungent smell.
Similarly, smoke emanating from engine oil also acts as repellent, and the tying of sarees and wires around the fields.
In Chittoor district, wild boars are an unending phenomenon for farmers of over two dozen hamlets abutting the thick forests in Kuppam, Gudupalle, Shantipuram and Ramakuppam mandals at the tri-state junction in the district flanked by Tamil Nadu and Karnataka.
In the last five years, fearing raids by wild boars, farmers have completely stopped cultivating groundnut crops and certain vegetables and shifted to growing cereals. “Over the years, they have become immune to all our efforts to drive them away like beating drums and firing crackers. We have no option but to change the crop patterns and avoid crops dearer to them,” says Subramanyam, a farmer from Motlachenu of Kuppam mandal. To protect their crops, the farmers sometimes plant crude bombs in the fields.
The bombs are made of gun powder mixed with chickpea and groundnut flour. Lured by the smell of these flours, the boars bite the deadly lumps only to get blown off to pieces.
Divisional Forest Officer (Chittoor) T. Chakrapani says the menace of wild boars is a common problem in rural areas abutting forests. “In Kuppam constituency, the problem has been solved to near zero in many hamlets, thanks to digging of elephant-proof trenches,” he adds.
The attack on a child on Saturday brings human-animal conflict to the fore
