While super powers are deploying drones as bombers to eliminate their enemies in theaters of war, forest officials in Tamil Nadu’s Western Ghat regions have come out with a strategy to use the same “weapons” to bring down man-animal conflicts and keep both sides unharmed.
A team of forest officials have been trying all the peaceful tricks in their armory to keep the wild animals, especially the herd of elephants, tigers and leopards off the human settlements in the peripheries of the Mudumalai Tiger Reserve and Coimbatore Forest Divisions. The regions along the outskirts have been encroached and inhabited by hundreds of people and has turned out to be an area experiencing unprecedented rates of man-animal conflicts.
This week saw D Venkatesh, District Forest Officer, and his team of foresters conducting the test flights of the drone in the conflict zone along Mangarai and Periya Thadagam in the district. “The drones flew at a height of 75 meters and we spotted a dozen wild elephants which were roaming close to the borders of the forest.
The resolution was good and we saw the herd rushing back into deep forests, probably because of the sound of the rotors of the drones. The sound was similar to the ones that emitted by honey bees, the bête noire of the elephants,” Venkatesh told The Pioneer over phone from Mangarai forests.
He said that his team had tried drum beats, solar fences, bee hives and even trenches to keep the marauding elephants from human settlements.
“But the elephants are equally intelligent and outwit us by finding some other means to steal the crops,” said Venkatesh who was at his wits end recently when one of the elephants literally ransacked a provision shop in O’Vally Forest area in the district and made away with the entire jackfruits, mangoes and jiggery kept in the shop.
The two drones, costing Rs 12 lakh were procured using the funds provided by the Tamil Nadu Biodiversity and Greening Project . The drone could stay on the air for 25 minutes and provide sharp pictures. Since the battery has to be charges after 25 minutes, we have to bring the vehicle back for re-charging every 25 minutes and that is the handicap . Otherwise, it is quite helpful,” said Venkatesh.
Sadiq Ali, Wildlife and Nature Conservation Trust, Nilgiri, who has been relentlessly campaigning for the deployment of drones to monitor the movement of wild animals expressed happiness over the new initiative.
“Out objective is to use drones to monitor the movement of tigers, cheetahs and wild guars because there were any instances of human beings getting attacked by tigers and leopards in this region. The only concern is the bee-like noise emitted by drones which we hope would not upset the animals,” said Ali.
G Ramakrishnan, Forest Ranger, O'Valley Forest Circle, said he was waiting for drones to deploy in his range which too was experiencing the menace of elephants and tigers trespassing into human settlements.