With eight people being killed in chance encounters with elephants in the Rishikesh range of Dehradun forest division this year, the level of public discontent is rising. The department is in touch with experts from the Wildlife Institute of India and in case a rogue elephant is identified, the pachyderm will be translocated.
Most of the human deaths resulting from chance encounters with elephants in Rishikesh area occurred when people entered the forests to collect firewood or fodder. On Tuesday a boy was killed by an elephant a few days after a woman was killed in a chance encounter with a jumbo. According to the Dehradun divisional forest officer Sushant Patnaik, the department is in touch with WII experts and if a rogue elephant is identified in the area, it will be translocated. “The department staff is regularly patrolling sensitive areas apart from which trenches are being dug, boundary walls are being constructed and solar fencing is being erected to prevent elephants from entering human inhabited areas. Solar fencing has already been put to use in some areas where it is being maintained with the help of villagers. This year the Uttarakhand Renewable Energy Development Agency (UREDA) has been given Rs 18 lakh for solar fencing in areas sensitive from the view point of human-elephant conflict,” he said. Traffic on the Dehradun-Rishikesh road is being allowed through in convoy system till 10 PM to prevent undesirable encounters between the traffic and pachyderms.
Departmental field staff opine that in spite of being cautioned and even penalised, villagers in forest fringe areas continue to enter the forests mainly to collect firewood and fodder. “In the jungle, someone who is not alert to signs and sounds will not come to know of an elephant’s presence at the right time and in most cases such chance encounters might not end favourably for the human,” said a forest guard not wanting to be named. The protective measures being undertaken by the department will help secure humans only within a certain area around their place of habitation but if they continue to enter the forests, it is not easy for the department to ensure their protection in the jungle, he added.
It is worth mentioning here that factors like habitat fragmentation, change of season and shortage of fodder and water in the forests have caused an increase in the chance encounters between humans and elephants in the Terai region of Uttarakhand.