BHUBANESWAR: As man-elephant conflict persists in Athagarh forest division, forest officials have decided to enrich all the elephant habitats in 38 reserve forests of the division with bamboo shoots to arrest the ongoing confrontation. Around one quintal seed balls of Dendro calamus (Salia) bamboo seeds, brought from silviculture division at Jashipur in Baripada, are being thrown in the open patches of forests under the division.
The forest division involved local communities in preparing the seed balls which are being dropped in the forest since July first week and the process would be completed this month.
“These seeds will germinate and grow into saplings within four months. We expect the plants to grow completely in six to seven months and provide shoots to elephants,” said Divisional Forest Officer (DFO) Sasmita Lenka.
As elephants love to feed on bamboo shoots, the initiative may stop them from raiding human habitations in search of food, Lenka said. The division had started the initiative at a small scale last year by dropping around 9.5 kg seed balls. And 60 pc of the seeds germinated.
“This year we decided to adopt it in a massive scale,” the DFO said and added that prior to implementation, a massive awareness campaign on the restoration of natural habitats of elephants was conducted in all the villages hit by jumbo depredation.
Officials of the Forest department and locals hope that the initiative will be a game-changer in confining elephants to forest limits of the division in Cuttack district - one of the epicenters of man-elephant confrontation in the State.
“Elephants coming from Chandaka Dampada sanctuary raid villages at Athagarh and Khuntuni range to eat standing crops and vegetable plants. We are hopeful that bamboo cover in the forest will check the conflict to a great extent,” the DFO said.