RANCHI: Concerned over regular incidents of man-animal conflict in Jharkhand, the State Forest Department is developing a mobile app on which it would be able to update the exact location of wild elephants on a regular basis.
According to forest officials, this will also help in identifying the locations where the tuskers stop for a comparatively longer period of time and the vegetation available there so that a similar environment could be developed at other locations to keep them away from densely populated areas.
Besides roping in forest guards to update the location of wild elephants, the help of local villagers could also be taken to gather information in this regard. Presently, the information related to the movement of wild elephants is made available through SMS on mobile phones and also updated on the website of the forest department.
“We have been thinking of developing an app to track wild elephants so that the exact pattern of the route followed by them every year could be identified easily. Through this app, it could also be determined that how many herd of wild elephants are on the move at a particular time in the state,” said Principal Chief Conservator of Forests (PCCF) (Wild Life) Shashikar Samanta.
As of now, there is no mechanism in the state to determine the exact number of elephant herds as they keep on moving from one place to another, and many times, the same herd is reported multiple times by different divisions, he added.
Samanta said that one particular herd could also be identified and tracked easily by using this app. He, however, said that brainstorming is still on to make it more effective. He added that presently, it is being developed from the management point of view so that data could be created for research purposes in the long run.
According to an estimate, there are nearly 600 wild elephants which keep on moving in different groups,
he added. Meanwhile, on the basis of the recommendations given by a five-member committee, orders have been passed to catch hold of the lone wild tusker which has claimed as many as 16 lives in the last fortnight, by tranquillizing it.