If man is cutting down jungles, the animals too are hitting back. The escalating man-animal conflict is threatening the safety of both, forcing the government to devise means to contain it.
So, it is not just the tigers and rhinoceros that are increasingly falling victim to poachers following demands for their body parts in the international market. Men too are falling prey as animals are venturing out of the shrinking habitats in search of food, running crops and trampling on humans in the process.
The initial data collected by the ministry of environment from different states reveal that 653 people were killed and 17,062 were injured in the last 10 years in 12 states including Nagaland, Andhra Pradesh, Mizoram, Andhra Pradesh, Goa, Sikkim, Arunachal Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Meghalaya and Uttar Pradesh.
Surprisingly, the most number of people were killed by elephants (114), followed by tigers (95) and bears (55). In case of injuries, bear attacks left the maximum number of people injured—445, while leopards left 419 hurt.
These grisly figures are merely a tip of the iceberg.
“The other states are yet to respond, as we are collecting the data, so the number may rise manifold,” an official said. States like J&K, West Bengal, Uttarakhand, Maharashtra and Karnataka that too have high incidence of man-animal conflict are yet to send data.
Apart from the men, 22,667 livestock have been killed by the wild animals, with tigers leading the pack with 12,286 victims, followed by elephants in 7,691 cases.
The environment ministry debated the issue on Thursday. Sources said meeting of states is likely to be called to take the debate further. Even a parliamentary consultative committee meeting is on cards, sources said.
The issue was also flagged by Kishor Rithe, member of the National Board of Wildlife, who wrote to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on 17 April asking for special package for the area to fight the problem. In his letter to Singh, who is also the chairperson of the NBWL, Rithe said a number of villagers around Maharashtra’s Tadoba Andhari Tiger Reserve (TATR) in Chandrapur district have been killed or injured in leopard and tiger attacks. “Carnivores who are not familiar with human presence inside the TATR tend to attack villagers. From 2007 to 2013, there have been around 83 human deaths. There have been 223 human and 21,775 livestock deaths in Maharashtra during 2007 and 2012,” Rithe said.
He said the package should fund alternate livelihood programmes, specially for landless families and grazers living in these villages. If at least one tribal youth from such families get the benefit of this programme, he would help to discourage old people, youngsters from his family from going to the forest for MFP collection and free grazing.
According to the official note prepared by the wildlife division of the Union Environment Ministry, among the strategies being thought of to deal with the situation is to draw a set of guidelines – Dos and Don’ts for people in the conflict prone areas. An official said, “The suggestions being mulled include mass media campaign through TV and newspapers to flag the issue; revision of rates of ex-gratia payment to injured and next of kin of those killed; deployment of adequate protection staff, wildlife habitat improvement, promotion of alternate crops; radio tracking of wild animals particularly feral elephants; and bringing the forest areas under government control by shifting the populations.” Another solution being like Assam that formed Rapid Response Teams (RRTs) to deal with growing instances of man-animal conflict, as over 12 leopards were killed in the last few months when they strayed into human habitations.
Ironically, the situation has been turning political in many areas as when tigers attack villagers or their livestock, the residents ask for better compensation or even resort to killing the man eaters. Politicians of all hues enter the picture to aggravate the matter, by demanding action against animals which results in their killing, as it has been seen in many parts of the country.