GUWAHATI: Disruption of traditional elephant corridors and decreasing access to food has compounded the conflict between humans and elephants in areas along and near the Assam-Meghalaya border, forest officials here say.
“A majority of the wild elephants who cross over to the Goalpara forest division near the border are originally from Garo Hills, and with the traditional/regular routes taken by the herds blocked of late because of erection of electric fences in Garo Hills, the elephants have literally no option but to take a detour,” a senior official from the Assam forest department told The Shillong Times on Saturday.
On Friday, a herd of 28 wild elephants had reportedly damaged several houses and destroyed crops in the Dhekiabari area in Krishnai (Goalpara district) near the Assam-Meghalaya border. However, there was no casualty or injury caused to any person.
Forest sources say that unlike Rani and Garbhanga under Guwahati wildlife division, which has a large forest area facilitating better movement of elephant herds, the reserved forests in Goalpara division are smaller and scattered.
“The elephants in these 30 to 40 scattered reserved forests earlier used to migrate to Bangladesh but now they are confined to the border areas of Assam and Meghalaya. Also, most villagers in Goalpara district are taking up large-scale rubber plantation and hence access to food for these marauding elephants has become limited. So, these herds resort to destroying houses and granaries in search of food,” the forest official said.
The herds, he said, generally raid human habitation in search of food during winter. “But of late, there is an apparent deviation and we are noticing a growing trend of elephants raiding human habitation in other seasons as well,” the forest official said.
According to the report of the Comptroller and Auditor General of India (year ended March 31, 2017), close to 10,000 cases of human-elephant conflicts have been reported from Meghalaya in the past five years.
Twenty five persons died, 22 injured and about 4,009 hectares of cropland damaged in such conflicts between 2012 and 2017.
Meghalaya is home to around 1,800 elephants with Garo Hills region alone (including Balpakram National Park), accounting for about two-thirds of such conflicts, the CAG report said.
