The Assam State Government forest department has announced a cash reward of Rs.10,000 to anyone providing information about those killing wild elephants migrating from sanctuaries and reserved forests to human habitats. The decision was taken at a meeting of the Elephant Depredation Committee recently. A total of six elephants, four at Sonitpur district and one each at Goalpara and Golaghat have been killed so far in the first week of October alone.

The Chairperson of People for Animals (PFA), Maneka Gandhi, has expressed her deep concern at the rampant killing of wild elephants in Assam. She has asked the Animal Welfare Board of India to order a probe into the matter. The PFA has also requested the Assam Government to minimise the frequent man-animal conflict in some areas near the sanctuaries and the national parks.

One tusker was found dead inside 12 No. Lane of the Tezpur-Ghogra tea estate on October 10. Earlier on October 7, an adult female elephant and two male calves were found dead near Monabagh tea estate under the Batasipur forest range. Portions of the liver, intestines and hearts of the dead elephants have been sent to State Forensic Laboratory to ascertain the cause of their death. According to official sources, people angry at their depredation, killed nine elephants inside Nameri National Park last year and the first part of this year while six more tuskers were found dead in civil areas near Tezpur during the same period. However, it is learnt from unofficial sources that altogether 23 wild elephants were killed in Sonitpur district during this period. In most of the cases, the villagers used organo-phosphates to poison the wild elephants. Experts from Assam’s College of Veterinary Science under the Assam Agricultural University had confirmed, after examining parts of the carcasses of nine elephants killed inside Nameri National Park last year, that spraying of organo phosphates in the water sources and on the fodder of the elephants was the cause of their death. The district magistrate of Sonitpur had, by an order, prohibited possession and sale of ‘Demecron’ pesticide last year.

A report said that the wild tuskers had killed 190 people during the last decade in Sonitpur district alone. The State Government had constituted a one-man commission headed by the North Assam Division Commissioner to inquire into the circumstances that led to the death of the wild elephants inside the Nameri National Park and other areas of Sonitpur district in the last part of November 2001. The Commission was directed to submit its report within a month. However, the report has not been published to date. The villagers of Balipara, Ghoramari and Bihaguri have narrated that the migrating wild elephants from nearby reserve forest areas damage their crops regularly. They say that a herd of 250 to 300 wild elephants regularly approach the human habitations and damage crops, which has created panic among them.

Shrinkage of habitat area due to large-scale deforestation in the Naduar, Balipara, Chariduar and Nameri reserve forests is the root cause of the man-elephant conflict. Seventy per cent of these forests have been encroached upon at the instance of vested interests. While, in a hasty move, the Forest Department threw out encroachers from Guwahati city rendering thousands of families homeless in the name of implementing the order of the Supreme Court, not a single encroacher could be evicted by the authorities from the reserve forests. On the contrary, an MLA of the ruling party himself set a forest camp on fire because of the ‘audacity’ of the forest officials in evicting encroachers who were valid voters of his constituency. The politicians, no matter which party they belong to, seem to be patrons of these illegal encroachers, because they want to build their vote bank inside the reserved forests.

Apprehending conflict between the wild elephants and the villagers living near the reserve forests, sanctuaries and national parks, the forest authority erected a 90 km long electric fence with Central Project Elephant funding to divert the usual route so that man-elephant conflicts are minimised. But it is alleged that the fund was improperly utilised. A five-km stretch of fencing was working and effective to some extent in diverting the route of the elephants from the Dharikhuti-Potasali area. But the encroachers destroyed the fencing because it restricted their movement, too. A wildlife expert also pointed out that electric fencing may save a particular area from the wild animals but they will only be diverted to some other area. Diverting a herd of hungry elephants from place A to place B cannot satiate their hunger.