
KOCHI: Less than a month into the new year, the state has lost four lives in wild animal attacks. The death of Radha, a tribal woman, in a tiger attack at Pancharakolli in Wayanad has spread fear in the high ranges. This followed the caging a week ago of a tiger that had terrorised the Pulpally area. On Saturday, a leopard was captured in Koodaranji, Kozhikode.
Vijayan, a farmer from Kanjikode, Palakkad, is fighting for his life at Thrissur medical college hospital after being attacked by a wild elephant. Desperate over the loss of lives, farmers are demanding the translocation of tigers from overpopulated wildlife sanctuaries.
With summer at the doorstep, waterbodies in the forest have started shrinking, forcing wild animals to enter human habitations. According to forest officials, elephants and tigers from Mudumalai and Bandipur tiger reserve migrate to the Wayanad forests during summer in search of food and water. This leads to a spike in human-wildlife conflict in the district. Easy availability of food is attracting wild animals to human habitations, say officials.
The recent spike in attacks has triggered a debate on the state’s conflict-mitigation strategy. Farmers say solar fences are not effective in preventing wild animals from entering human habitations.
The fences stop working when overrun by creepers. Meanwhile, environmentalists have mooted the idea of developing bio fences along forest boundaries. Farmers in other states use lemon trees, lemon grass, agave, thorny shrubs and beehives as bio barriers to stop wild animals.
‘Beehive barriers ineffective’
“We had experimented with beehives at a distance of 2.5 km along the forest border with support from agriculture department around 15 years ago. It is said that the buzzing of honey bees scare elephants away. It was effective in the beginning, but we stopped beekeeping around seven years ago as it was not affordable.
The beehives are hung from a steel rope at a height of 10 m. But the bees were not staying in the hives due to strong winds. We had to place sugar syrup in the hives to attract bees and that reduced yields,” said John Kochery a farmer from Myladumpara in Thrissur district.
“Beehive barriers proved ineffective as elephants destroyed them in Wayanad. Stopping tigers in Wayanad is a challenging task as many settlements are located within forests. The government should conduct an analysis of prey-species distribution in the Wayanad forests to understand the real reason for the rise in conflicts,” wildlife expert P S Easa said.
“The rise in tiger and elephant populations is the key reason for the conflict. As per the 2023 enumeration, there are 80 tigers in Wayanad sanctuary, which can carry only 20 of their numbers. As per National Tiger Conservation Authority guidelines, a tiger requires 20 sqkm of territory. The solution is to translocate tigers from Wayanad to other forests with lesser tiger populations.
Section 12 BB of the Wildlife Protection Act permits translocation. The state government is planning to establish a safari park in Kozhikode which can hold 18 tigers. More such safari parks should be developed. The ultimate solution is allowing scientific culling of wild animals according to the carrying capacity of the forests,” said Kerala Independent Farmers’ Association (KIFA) chairman Alex Ozhukayil.
Meanwhile the office of the chief wildlife warden said steps are being taken to establish hanging fences in conflict hot spots and to improve forest habitats by removing invasive and exotic species, converting plantations into natural forest and replenishing water bodies in the forest.
“We have restored 1,434, pools and check dams, 575 wetlands and 308 water resources in the forest by removing silt conducting cleaning works to ensure availability of water in the forest. The department has availed funds to the tune of `8.69 crore from Nabard for restoration of waterbodies in the forest. Besides, we are restoring 130 wetlands in Wayanad utilising Kiifb funds,” said a senior forest official.
The forest department has launched an eco-restoration drive with Nabard funding to remove invasive plants and restore natural forests on 5,031 hectares. The department has already removed acacia, mangium, eucalyptus and teak from 1,583 hectares of plantations which are being converted into natural forest.
Undoing the damage
As part of forest restoration work:
Eco-restoration has been taken up in 5,031 ha 1,583.85 ha of mono-crop plantations have been converted into natural forest
Clearance to remove 5,000 tonnes of senna from Wayanad forests
61,678 senna trees cut down
2,667.91 tonnes of wood removed
In keeping with efforts to replenish water sources, officials restored:
1,434 pools and check dams
308 other waterbodies
574 wetlands