India: Elephants vs. people?

In India a multitude of causes is increasingly pitting elephants against people. The most obvious factor is human incursion into elephant territory. Forests are being destroyed because of the mining and timber industries, drought and monoculture plantations. As a result, elephants are driven further and further into populated areas in search of food.

Some conservation efforts have ironically contributed to the conflict as well. Wildlife protection has boosted elephant numbers, some reforestation efforts have drawn elephants out of the deep forest attracted by new growth and some elephants have even decided that they fancy crops, and who can blame them?

Charging elephant, Kabini Forest. Pic: Vinoth Chandar (Flickr CC)

Rural villages are typical battlegrounds. Reports of ?marauding? elephants conducting raids on many villages sound like the stuff of nightmares. As many as 15-17 elephants enter a village en mass, destroy houses, devour fruit trees and rice paddies and then move on to the next village. Other sources report elephants causing human injury and even death. Sometimes villagers take tremendous risks to drive the elephants back into the forest.

Of course it really grabs headlines when a herd of elephants enters a large city, like what happened in Bangalore a few weeks ago.

A columnist for the Guardian relates the events of an elephant invasion that prompted her children?s school to be closed for the day:

The panicked pachyderms moved into Bangalore?s plush IT district of Whitefield, as neighbouring schools and offices hastily shut down, and a massive crowd of onlookers gathered. But much as the children enjoyed it, the incursion masked deeper, graver problems. The herd ended up killing four people- including a journalist trying to take photographs-before they were finally cornered by forest officials and driven back to the jungle.

Human relationships with elephants are complex in India and are far from always confrontational. Forest wardens recently rescued an elephant that had fallen into a ditch located in a wildlife sanctuary in Kerala. Read all about it and view the accompanying slideshow of the drama in the Huffington Post.

And then there?s this elephant sanctuary located on a temple compound (also in Kerala), which has been attracting throngs of visitors.

Begging/working elephant on a Mumbai street. Pic: Oferico (Flickr CC)

The plight of working elephants has also been gaining significant attention in India after Bollywood star Amitabh Bachchan leant important publicity to the plight of Bijlee, a 52-year-old former begging elephant who was dying on the side of a suburban Mumbai street. Veterinarians from Wildlife SOS, a prominent Indian wildlife rescue and welfare organization blamed Biljee?s terminal condition on years of neglect and abuse at the hands of her owner.

Kartick Satyanarayan, CEO of Wildlife SOS is quoted in National Geographic:

Both captive and wild Asian elephants are in trouble, in fact they are endangered. Hundreds of working elephants succumb to abuse and neglect by private owners everyday.

Our whole Wildlife SOS family hopes that Bijlee did not die in vain.

Sign Wildlife SOS?s petition ?Save India?s Begging Elephants?.

Source: http://asiancorrespondent.com/110626/india-elephants-vs-people/

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