American forces in Afghanistan and Qatar are using drones to bomb the camps of Islamic State terrorists. Reports about the number of IS extremists getting killed in drone attacks have become a routine affair in these countries. But in the land of Mahatma Gandhi, drones have been deployed to save precious wildlife.
Sophisticated drones and some ingenious methods are the new “weapons of peace” being used by the Government of Tamil Nadu to scare away wild animals trespassing into human habitation. The drones, five in number, were given to the Department of Forest by the Union Ministry of Environment and Forest.
Officials of the forest department have confirmed that every year Tamil Nadu loses 70 elephants due to man-animal conflicts. The year 2016 saw officials shooting down four tigers which were labelled as man eaters.
Since severe water shortage in the forests is forcing wild animals, especially elephants, to come out of human habitations in search of drinking water and food, the State administration has decided to dig farm ponds in the reserve forests. This was announced by Dindigul C Sreenivasan, Minister for Environment and Forest.
“We will construct 60 farm ponds at a cost of Rs3 crore in this current financial year itself. Wild animals are migrating from forests in search of water as the landscapes had dried up due to monsoon failure. The man-animal conflicts are on the rise. Farm ponds will help in harvesting rain water, replenish ground water and enrich the flora,” said the Minister.
The forest department is going hi-tech by introducing information technology driven systems for tracking and monitoring wildlife habitats. Taken aback by the death of seven elephants in the first five months of the current year, the Tamil Nadu Forest Department is all set to introduce sophisticated drones to control the movement of wild elephants and prevent them from entering human habitation.
“We will soon start using drones to scare away wild elephants. These drones would have loud speakers which will blare out pre-recorded roars of predators,” said Senthil Kumar, Range Officer, Madukkarai near Coimbatore. He said elephants have some kind of aversion to the bees-like noise of the drones.
The drones were given by the Centre for monitoring animal habitation and track the movement of animals on round the clock basis. “As on date, farmers scare away wild animals, especially wild elephants, with the noise emitted by empty tins and drum beats. If we could use the roar of tigers and leopards through loud speakers attached to the drones, the animals would be scared away to their dwelling places,” said one of the senior forest officials based in Chennai.
A senior official of Southern Railway confided that they too are in the process of making use of drones to check the movement of wild animals along the Coimbatore-Palakkadu stretch which falls in the periphery of Western Ghats. last year saw ten elephants getting mowed down by trains in this sector alone.