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August 10, 2023 09:46 am | Updated 01:44 pm IST
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The forest department begins an operation to tranquillise and capture wild elephant in Tirupur, 2019. | Photo Credit: M. PERIASAMY
Trader M. Ashok Kumar of Maruthapuram, a small village abutting the Maruthamalai foothills, some 10 km from Coimbatore in Tamil Nadu, was three weeks into running a ration shop in the locality when he encountered the most unexpected challenge.
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The concrete roofed government building with a strong rolling shutter was never a target for theft in the past. But a ‘loot’ was reported at the ration shop on the night of July 22. When he stepped into the shop the following morning, he found rice scattered all over the verandah and torn jute bags. The intruder had taken the gunny bags after knocking down the rolling shutter, a break-in that no human could achieve. A thick layer of mud on the upper beam meant the trespasser had to bend to sneak into the shop. Kumar did not need any more proof to identify the intruder: an elephant had had a quick meal in the middle of the night.
“Around 500 kg of rice was lost,” he says. Kumar had taken over the shop on July 1 and the loss of half a tonne of rice in the third week was a big blow. Fearing further jumbo raids, he shifted his provisions to a rented space closer to the Coimbatore-Maruthamalai road, around 700 metres away from the old one. “Wild elephants raiding shops in the village was unheard of. Though they often pass through the road at night, they never targeted shops,” says an equally anguished U. Pooavarasan, who runs a grocery store close to the old ration shop.
Forest officials capture a tusker that killed four persons near Vellalore in Coimbatore, 2017. | Photo Credit: M. Periasamy
Around 10 km away, in the 24 Veerapandi village panchayat, a herd of elephants had made a similar loot at the grocery store run by P. Giridharan in April. It was also the first instance of wild elephants damaging a shop in the village. The herd, comprising a calf, feasted on rice, jaggery, flour and ‘Ooty Varkey’ (a famed crispy puffed biscuit-like delicacy), recalls Giridharan.
In November 2019, the Tamil Nadu Forest Department had captured a tusker named ‘Arisi Raja’ (for his love of rice) from Arthanaripalayam, around 70 km from Coimbatore, and lodged him in a kraal. The elephant allegedly killed three people while straying into villages for rice and crops. ‘Arisi Raja’ is now a kumki, a trained tusker, renamed as Muthu.
Raman Sukumar, who has studied Asian elephants for over four decades, calls this trend of elephants raiding shops a culturally transmitted behaviour. “Elephants are coming into closer contact with human settlements and they are attracted by the smell of food. And sometimes elephants learn that if they break into a house, they get food. They start that kind of behaviour and other elephants learn from it,” he says. Though this behavioural change was very common in places such as Jharkhand, it has not been happening to that extent in the South except in a few places such as Valparai and Gudalur and in the case of elephants like Arikomban, a rice-eating tusker that was translocated twice.
In the Coimbatore Forest Division, a crop-raiding tusker, Chinna Thambi, was translocated to the Anamalai Tiger Reserve in January 2019, a month after a much older bull, Vinayagan, was translocated from the same landscape. Elephant expert Ajay Desai had opined Chinna Thambi was probably mentored by Vinayagan in crop raiding. “We need to nip this in the bud. We need to make sure such behaviour does not spread,” says Sukumar.
Chinna Thambi (right), a wild elephant that had been raiding farms and houses in Thadagam Valley, captured in 2019. | Photo Credit: M. PERIASAMY
The ecologist sees this change as a part of an overall expansion of ranges by elephants. While the elephant numbers doubled across the country since 1978-79, when the first all-India estimation was done, he finds the conflict levels have gone up four fold.
He says the situation is escalating because the habitat in some parts of the country, especially in east-central India, are witnessing threats in the form of mining and habitat fragmentation.
The Northeast is witnessing large-scale transformation of habitat. Massive deforestation took place in Assam’s Sonitpur district and adjoining areas in the 1990s, due to the agitation of Bodo militants for homeland, while States such as Meghalaya have seen a shift in cultivation.
“It is essential that we bring the focus back to elephant landscapes. The population, according to the officials, has almost doubled in the last 40-odd years. Because of that the elephants are now expanding their ranges, bringing them in serious conflict with people,” says Sukumar.
Invasive species such as lantana have ravaged forest areas and grasslands, another factor that is pushing elephants out of forests, especially in the South.
“The number of people killed in elephant attacks in the early 1980 was 125 in India. Today, it is over 500. We need to take action very quickly because it is growing manifold. The longer we wait, the more difficult for us to control,” he says.
The ecologist feels an urgent need to bring the focus back to the management of elephants within Project Elephant reserves and to solve problems in the corridors. “Conflicts are growing and if they grow beyond a certain stage, it will become unmanageable, without very drastic steps being taken, such as shooting elephants, which I am not in favour of, or capturing elephants on a large scale, which also is not desirable. We need to be able to control the conflict situation within a reasonable period of time, before it becomes a huge monster,” he warns.
wilson.t@thehindu.co.in
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environmental issues / The Hindu Sunday Magazine / wildlife / Coimbatore
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