Metal gates to stop elephants

Hyderabad: Concrete pillars and metal gates are the new techniques being employed in Chittoor, Andhra Pradesh, apart from the usual digging up of trenches to ensure a herd of 30 elephants in Koundinya Wildlife Sanctuary do not enter human habitations.

Conservator of forests, Anantapur, S.S. Sreedhar, said that the forest department has identified 125 spots for constructions of 5-feet concrete pillars along the streams. As many as 24 spots have been identified for setting up metal gates along the roads that pass through the sanctuary or alongside, to restrain the elephants.

Already 30 pillars have been constructed and two gates erected. Kuppam and Palamneru apart from the eight villages inside sanctuary are the worst-affected due to the human-elephant conflicts. Forest officials got this idea after visiting the Nagarhole National Park in Tamil Nadu last year.

Mr Sreedhar said: “The animals have a right to be in the forest but when they get out, they destroy agricultural fields and sometimes end up killing humans. While the openings between forests and human habitations will be blocked, the forest areas connecting AP with Tamil Nadu and Karnataka will be kept open for their free movement.”

The elephants in Koundinya are not permanent residents of the sanctuary. They visit the sanctuary in summer months. In 1984, a herd of elephants was first spotted in the forests of Chittoor, following which the sanctuary was created for them.

Mr Sreedhar said, “Many years ago, elephants must have been moving all along the Eastern Ghats in AP and Tamil Nadu and might have also migrated from here to the Western Ghats in Karnataka. Over the years, due to fragmentation of forests, the migration got disrupted and elephants' movement got restricted. However, some elephants must have got the old migration routes in their genes transferred from their ancestors and are now trying to take the same path.”