The urban greens demand that the rural poor live in conflict even where it does not help conservation
THE ONLY potentially dangerous wildlife that still survives in our cities is the occasional snake, largely because it is difficult to spot. Whenever one is found, it is either killed or rescued (read dumped outside the city limits). Anything bigger stands no chance at all. Intruding leopards trigger lynch mobs. Straying elephants face gunshots or are violently chased away.

With escalating man-elephant conflicts and more than 20 elephant deaths from in and around Simlipal Tiger Reserve (STR) in Odisha, nearly 100 villages have been involved in a campaign “Haathi Mere Saathi” aimed at befriending the national heritage animal with common man. Basically, an initiative of the Ministry of Environment and Forest (MoEF), the campaign has been taken up in the tiger reserve along with the forest divisions of Karanjia, Baripada and Rairanpur which are amongst the worst-hit in man-elephant conflicts.

The four-lane work of a crucial National Highway stretch is waiting for a nod from the high-level National Board for Wildlife as it passes through the Dalma Wildlife Sanctuary. Otherwise, the project on the 163.5km highway stretch between Ranchi-Rargaon-Jamshedpur (till Ghatshila) has received clearances from all state departments concerned, including water, forest, road and land.

A study on the sloth bears of Dalma, which was submitted as a report to the Ranchi wildlife division two days ago, throws light on the insectivorous mammal and its habitat in Jharkhand.

The study was carried out by Seema Rani of Jamshedpur, who did her MPhil in forestry from the Indian Institute of Wildlife-Dehradun.

During a four-month-long study from April to July last year, she came across many hitherto unknown facts about the bears of Dalma.

KOLKATA: Rhino census in West Bengal will begin from March 12, forest minister Hiten Barman said. "Authorities concerned have already been asked to take appropriate steps in this regard," he said here. Besides, there could be an amendment to the Bird Conservation Act to save winged species, he said. To prevent leopards often entering into tea gardens, Barman said steps were being taken to restrict the movement of leopards within the limit of sanctuaries.

A pair of elephant tusks, weighing approximately 32kg, were recovered late last night from Dalma sanctuary with the help of a sniffer dog and forest officials believe they have scuttled an attempt to smuggle out the ivory valued at Rs 40 lakh in the open market. While the forest department did not think the recovery was a pointer to an established poaching racket in the sanctuary, officials are, however, fairly certain there must have been an attempt to smuggle the tusks since they had been sawed off and later found 4km away from where they had spotted a dead elephant on January 29.

Elephants at Dalma Wildlife Sanctuary

Last year, the panacea for the elephant menace was burning cow dung cakes mixed with red chillies. Last week, it was deploying village vigilantes armed with cellphones. Right now, it is a proposal to hire around 20 “professional elephant drivers” from Bengal.

Seraikela division’s forest officials hope that the latest move to minimise man-animal conflict will succeed.
By engaging the elephant drivers, they hope that 45 elephants migrating from Dalma to Saranda’s forests, will be safety steered to their destination without damaging paddy or property along the way.