ONGOLE: With the increase in temperature, wild animals including wild dogs, bears, tigers, deers and other animals of Nallamala forest are venturing into nearby villages in search of drinking water.
The forest officials made elaborate arrangements to fill all the water sources of the forest, including saucer pits and ponds to cater to the needs of the wild animals in order to avoid the incidents of human-wild animal conflicts. Nallamala Tiger Reserve forest in the combined Prakasam, Kurnool and Guntur districts extends up to 1,402.72 km. According to the 2018 Tiger Census, the forest has around 72 big cats.
The surrounding villagers of Nallamala-Srisailam Tiger Reserve are caught in fear with the tiger movements within the human habitation for the past few weeks. An incident of cattle death came into light on Friday near Devalootu forest limits in Pedda Dornala mandal triggered fear among the villagers as the forest staff identified that the cow was attacked by a tiger. Recently, villagers of Gundamcherla (Peddaraveedu mandal) identified the movements of tiger even as they noticed pug marks of a tiger near Subbareddy Kunta locality. The forest department officials also confirmed that the tiger movements. DRO Naga Raju, who visited the village, created awareness on conservation of tigers.
In this connection, the forest department has focused on making drinking water available to wild animals, including tigers, in order to keep which keep them within the forest limits. “We have filled all 10 saucer pits situated in Yerragonda Palem forest range limits to cater the water needs of the wild animals. This will reduce the wild animals movements out of the forest areas,” Venkateswara Rao, section officer explained.
The Markapur Forest Division has about 200 saucer pits along with check dams, small ponds to provide drinking water to the wild animals.