Public demand new measures to ward off threat from elephants

Ooty: While greens said that the fragmented forests in Gudalur - Pandalur belt is the reason for frequent straying of wild jumbos, the public wants new measures to ward off threat from jumbos. D.Boominathan, Landscape Co-coordinator, WWF-India said that the forests in both Pandalur and the adjoining Gudalur taluks are fragmented ones and in between the fragmented patches of jungles there are human settlements and agri-lands.  This actually complicates the
issue.

When a jumbo tries to move from this patch of jungle to the next patch, which is a couple of kilometers away, it tends to stroll through the agri-lands and tea gardens.  Most of the times it takes a hide out in and around the tea gardens and move out in the night hours and early morning.  Only during this time it turns violent and attacks human beings, he added.

“Efforts should be made to provide forest continuity between the fragmented jungles, at least in a couple of places, to help the jumbos to follow the forest route to move towards with the MTR jungles or Nilambur jungles in nearby Kerala.  For this, studies should be done to evolve a plan of action and strategy to implement this.  It may take a some more time,” he added.

Meanwhile, Mr.S.Badri, Secretary of the CPM in Nilgiris, said that the frequent man-elephant conflict in Pandalur-Gudalur belt only reflected the poor forest administration in Gudalur forest division. “Only a couple of days ago a person was trampled to death by a wild jumbo in the nearby Gudalur.  Now, 2 persons fell victim to the outrage of the stray jumbo. 

The forest department higher ups should inspect the spot, form a high level team to study the man-elephant conflict issue in Pandalur-Gudalur belt to chalk out strategies to manage this issue as this is slowly growing into a law and order problem as cops needs to rush to the man-animal conflict are to maintain peace. “Foresters talked about early warning system, placing iron-grids in sensitive areas to prevent entry of jumbos to human settlements and digging elephant proof trenches.  But, nothing took shape in an effective way that's why the conflict continues” he charged.

However, the residents in Pandalur belt feel that the Forest department should evolve new era strategies by blending the technology and tribal knowledge on man-elephant conflict to find ways and means to effectively o ward off jumbo threats, which has turned nightmarish for the residents in Pandalur and Gudalur belts.