GUWAHATI: A tusk-less male wild elephant (makhna), locally named “Laden” and believed to one among the 50 migratory elephants from Garo Hills, is giving forest personnel along the Assam-Meghalaya border under Goalpara forest division a slip despite stepped-up monitoring activities over the past two weeks.
“This highly mobile male elephant, which is about nine feet tall, has been unleashing terror among villagers. We have been trying to track it for the past 15 days and have deployed two domesticated elephants (kunthis) for the purpose. But the makhna has camouflaged itself well enough to evade us,” Goalpara divisional forest officer, A Goswami told The Shillong Times on Friday.
Over the past few weeks, the incidence of man-elephant conflicts in the forest division has been on the rise, with herds damaging houses and crops in search of food. A villager was trampled to death by a wild elephant on Thursday morning.
“More than the herds it is the solitary elephant on the rampage that we tell villagers to be wary of. The villager who was trampled on Thursday had been to the wilds to cut wood. But it is difficult to control every situation as the elephants have a scattered presence inside the dense forests,” Goswami said.
There are 56 reserved forests and 47 proposed reserved forests covering an area of 361 sq km under Goalpara forest division.
“However, in between these forests there are fragmented revenue lands with crop lands, making the inhabitants vulnerable to attacks by wild elephants from Garo Hills. Rising encroachment has blocked the paths (corridors) of the elephants in Garo Hills, making them direction-less and agitated and thereby forcing the herds to migrate to the border areas in Goalpara,” Goswami said.
Besides, forest officials claim that villagers in Garo Hills “do not allow” them to return as they put up false electric fences to keep the herds away.
As of today there are about 50 wild elephants roaming between three ranges of Goalpara forest division – Rangjuli, Krishnai and Goalpara – near the Meghalaya border.
“Elephants generally target granaries and mid-day meal schools as they raid villages in search of food. But we are keeping villagers on alert in regard to the vulnerable areas apart from their movement area. Our objective is to confine the elephants to their habitats,” he said.
Chronic manpower shortage has been a limitation though for the forest department. “There are 100 forest personnel on the job but most of them are over 50 years of age. We are also short by about 100 frontline staff at different levels,” the forest official said.