Elephantine threat: Assam considering sedation, relocation of aggressive animals

Elephantine threat: Assam considering sedation, relocation of aggressive animals

News:

1. Assam wildlife officials are considering sedation, relocation of aggressive elephants for reducing man-animal conflict in western Assam.

Important facts:

2. Assam wildlife officials said that they are encouraged by a similar experiment near Rajaji National Park in Uttarakhand.

3. About half of 58 elephant corridors in the northeast, comprising 35% of the country’s, are in Assam.

4. More than 15 of these corridors, used by an estimated 9,350 elephants, are under the Northeast Frontier Railway.

5. Human habitations and barriers such as electric fences and trenches have blocked some of these corridors.

6. The scores of reserve forests and proposed reserve forests in the district are fragmented.

7. Goalpara has 103 reserve forests, covering 20% of the district’s landmass.

8. Most of the elephants have been forced to move about in a 300 sq km area for more than two years now.

9. Cornered, the herds and a lone makhna – male without tusks – have turned aggressive, raiding villages and killing at least 17 people this year.

10. More worrying for wildlife officials and activists is the fact that conflicts are happening throughout the year, instead of winter months as in the past.

11. The gravity of the problem in Goalpara made the State forest department call all wildlife officials and veterinarians for a meeting to work out strategies.

12. Strategies:

• Translocation of the rogue loner and other ‘troublemakers’ in the herds.

13. Challenge:

• Finding suitable locations for translocation.