KOCHI :The Kerala High Court on Monday directed the Additional Chief Secretary, General Administration Department, to file within 10 days a plan detailing the immediate short-term steps that will be taken to prevent the straying of wild animals into human settlements in Wayanad.
A Division Bench comprising Justice A K Jayasankaran Nambiar and Justice Gopinath P ordered that the short-term plan should be one that will be implemented within a month thereafter and will be in addition to the long-term measures suggested by the Committee of Experts (CoE) that will be implemented in a phased manner.
The court passed the order at its special sitting in the wake of the death of a man in wild elephant attack in Wayanad.
The CoE had earlier suggested identification and mapping human-wildlife conflict areas, including species involved, nature and intensity of conflict, and seasonality. The court noted that the CoE had not been receiving the required assistance from the state government. The Bench expressed the hope that the governments of Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka would arrive at a mutually acceptable agreement in the human-animal conflict resolution.