After radio collaring tigers, the Union Environment Ministry is now contemplating doing the same with elephants in order to check the growing human-jumbo conflicts in the country.
As per official estimates nearly 400 people and 100 elephants are killed every year in such incidents. Assam, Odisha, Kerala and South Bengal are amongst the worst-hit States in the country.
According to sources in the Ministry, the proposal of satellite tracking of select elephants through radio collars is in the final stages. Once launched, it will take one year to be completed.
“The purpose of this nationwide exercise is to study their migration patterns. An analysis of their movements will help us avoid human-elephant conflict that results in large number of human and elephant deaths besides causing damage to crops worth millions across the country,” said the sources.
The problem is so widespread that out of a budget of Rs200 crore for Project Elephant, nearly Rs100 crore is spent on compensation to victims alone.
The number of elephants to be collared is yet to be decided. The project will be first taken up in Odisha, Assam, Kerala, Karnataka, Jharkhand and parts of South Bengal amongst others where the situation is grim.
As per the data of International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), the estimated population of the Asian elephants in the country is between 29,300 and 30,700, spread across 26 reserves in 60,000 sq kms.
The project was conceptualised in May 2015, when the Ministry set up a panel to study elephant migration to prevent human-elephant conflict. The expert committee was assigned with the task of studying the patterns of elephant movement, review elephant corridors, consider zonation of elephant corridors and their parameters and management principles.
In this situation, it was pointed out that radio collars could help in understanding and ultimately preventing human-elephant conflicts. Apart from this, it could also become an early warning system for villagers in order to avoid conflict with elephants as the collars could provide real-time information.
Further, radio collaring would also help in tracking elephants that cross over to neighbouring countries.
This largely happens from Northeastern and eastern parts of the country from where the jumbos reach the neighbouring nations as Bhutan, Bangladesh and Nepal. Hence, radio collaring such elephants will also help in maintaining coordination with the concerned authorities of these countries as well, the sources said.
However, according to experts, while radio collaring may partially help in tracking migration of elephants, but the basic cause of this growing conflict is loss of forests and habitat largely due to rapid industrialisation and urbanisation.