Mysuru: The director of the Nagarahole National Park has been issued notice by the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) on the iron spike beds it has laid along elephant- proof trenches (EPTs) and the three-inch spikes it has attached to rail barricades along its fringes as they are proving dangerous to its wildlife, especially elephants.
The notice has mentioned a report in the Deccan Chronicle, “Jumbo blood on fences, blame it on nails” of October 26, 2017.
Although the Supreme Court has directed the Karnataka Forest Department (KFD) to remove iron spikes from forests, they have now been laid on a concrete fence on the borders of the Kali tiger reserve in Uttara Kannada district too.
A senior forest official says the spike beds were laid on the recommendations of the Karnataka Elephant Task Force (KETF) and will be removed from all forests, but only after working out other measures to stop elephants from straying out of them.
One forest officer claims that he had opposed laying the spike beds along the Nagarahole park in 2014-15 but was ignored.
“I even tried to question the rationale of the idea of the spike beds through the Right to Information Act (RTI), but had to drop RTI query on the insistence of my colleagues,” the officer added.
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