M F AHMAD
Daltonganj, Jan 20: Fear of man-elephant conflict in blocks of Ramkanda and Bhandaria under the district of Garhwa has increased following the herd of the elephants on the rampage there.
Houses, barns and standing crops are being damaged and destroyed by the elephants.
Due to this, locals are having sleepless nights. They are burning bonfires and spend nights around it all for fear of elephants raiding their houses and crops.
Quite recently, a church that falls under the Ramkanda police station was partially damaged by the elephant leading to the suspension of Sunday mass prayer.
In the past two weeks, around a dozen houses have been damaged by the elephants which create a huge and wide hole in the brick wall all for searching paddy.
However, no loss of human life has been reported here, nevertheless the destruction of property and crop has enraged public much against the elephants.
Human and cattle life, both are destroyed by the elephants. Last year in Palamu, elephants had damaged car, scooter, bikes in the Bishrampur Pandu areas.
A villager of Bhandaria said the elephants cause heavy damages but the forest department takes destruction caused by the elephants as a routine annual feature which is unacceptable.
“Elephants are our enemy number one and we know what to do with them,” the man said.
There have been instances of man taking the toll on elephants by killing them with muzzle loaded guns, poisoning and low vault electricity.
The areas Ramkanda and Bhandaria blocks of Garhwa district are in the contiguity of Chhattisgarh and elephants of this state use to come here often.
D S Srivastav, a wildlife expert who has a doctoral thesis on the elephants, said Jharkhand must have an elephant action plan now with focus on its habitat, feed, water and protection.
Srivastav said village radio can be promoted for information among the villagers regarding the concentration and the movement of the elephants as this will reduce the dimension of damages besides containing the possibility of man elephant conflict also.
He said elephants do come to Jharkhand from other states like Orissa and Chhatisgarh.
Elephants of Orissa reach Saranda, Kolhan, Chaibasa as elephants of Chhatisgarh to Bhandaria, Ramkanda, south and north forests of Jharkhand’s Garhwa.
Field director and chief conservator of forest at Palamu Tiger Reserve Kumar Ashutosh said: “It is improper to say that PTR elephants are on the rampage and they are out beyond the precincts of the PTR just in search of food.”
“The jungles of PTR are one of the best habitats for the elephants with bamboos, water and circulating area wide and safe,” he added.
Deputy director North division of PTR Kumar Ashish said: “We have found that PTR elephants remain mostly in 300 square kilometers of our tiger reserve while three or four dozen of elephants in the Betla range.”
“Had our PTR elephants been on the rampage then in that event houses and huts in and around our PTR ought to have been hit hard first by the elephants while there is no such report of large-scale destruction of standing property here,” he added.
There are more than 190 villages in and around the PTR and the biotic pressure is too high as well.
D S Srivastav has suggested for formation of small dedicated squads of village youths to handle the menace of the elephants besides raising huge bamboo groves and orchards.
