Tired of repairing houses over and again after raiding elephants leave them damaged, all residents of a small tribal village have fled home and taken shelter in another village in Odisha’s Keonjhar district.
The 11 households of Kaliapani village under Bansapal block have also lost their crops to marauding elephants. Though Kaliapani is equipped with concrete roads and solar power, villagers could not lead a normal life in the face of regular invasions by aggressive wild elephants. In the past one and a half years, all the villagers — one after another — have moved to the nearby Uppartangarpada village.
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“For past one and a half years, elephants have been regularly entering our village in search of rice and handia (local brewery). They damage houses extensively. We have failed to recover the losses caused by elephants. Elephant movement also pose a threat to our lives. Hence, we have decided to leave our village,” Kathia Sanangi said.
Currently, Keonjhar district has 130 wild elephants. They often stray into human habitations in search of food.
Acknowledging the great number of human-elephant encounters in Keonjhar, its Divisional Forest Officer Dhanraj Hanumant Dhamdhere said, “On our part, we keep chasing elephant herds day in and day out. Our system has been made so robust that the department can give the exact location of elephant herds in Keonjhar.”
Mr. Dhamdhere said the veracity of tribal residents leaving their villages due to elephant raids was being ascertained.
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Critical stage
Human-elephant encounter is not new to Keonjhar. In the past, people have made tree houses in order to stay safe from wild elephants.
The conflict has reached a critical stage in Odisha with 57 persons losing their lives to marauding elephants between the month of April and June this year, which was 50% higher than the corresponding figure last year.
This year’s human deaths in encounters with elephants so far were estimated to be the highest for the said period in the past 10 years.
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Biswajit Mohanty, secretary of the Wildlife Society of Orissa (WSO), an environmental pressure group, said, “Elephant habitats in Keonjhar district have been fragmented due to extensive mining activities. The lack of food inside the forest forces them to raid nearby human habitations.”
