Jumbo menace rattles villagers near India-Nepal border

Residents of at least half a dozen villages in Champawat’s Tanakpur are spending sleepless night due to marauding herd of wild elephants in the region that forage through standing crop and fruit orchards. Villagers say that they are forced to stay awake at night to drive away the wild herds to save their crops and dwellings. Over the last one year, residents of villages in the region, including Thwalkhera, Khetkhera, Gaindakhali, Naya Goth, Kakrali gate, Uchauligoth and Bastia lived in fear of a tiger that was reported to roaming the region surrounded by dense forest on one side and the other by the India-Nepal border. Four women from the Kakrali gate, Thawalkhera, Naya Goth and Bastia were allegedly mauled to death by the big cats in less than a year while collecting fodder and firewood in the forest, villagers say. This apart, villagers have lost a number of livestock that fell prey to the big cats, some of them say. Following the increase in the incidents of man-animal conflicts in the region, forest officials placed cages and camera traps to catch the big cats in Sharda and Boom range but have failed to capture the tiger, villagers say, and add that forest officials do not respond to their desperate calls for help. Satish pandey, a villager, says, “Whenever we inform the forest officials, they don’t turn up in time to chase the elephant herds so we ourselves, have to ward off the animals by beating drums and utensils or bursting crackers.” “The forest watch and ward staff do not patrol region.” Tanakpur sub divisional officer Rajesh Srivastva, however, says that the villages fall in the periphery of an elephant corridor, which starts from the Rajaji Tiger Reserve to the western parts of Nepal. “Movements of pachyderms along the villages that fall on the elephant corridor are considered quite common.” He, however, says that the elephants do not enter the villages in search of fodder as it is in abundance in the forest. “Elephants by nature migrate from one place to another are known to destroy whatever comes on the way as it is the behavioral instinct of elephants.”.

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Nepal fence to keep elephants away may escalate into political row

Nepal has erected the 18-km-long energised fence near the bank of Mechi river that divides the two countries.

A battery-operated fence erected by Nepal along the border to keep elephants from India away is set to snowball into a controversy with the West Bengal government writing to the Centre to raise the issue with the neighbouring country.

Nepal erected the 18-km-long energised fence near the bank of Mechi river that divides the two countries with aid from international funding agencies six months ago.

West Bengal forest minister Binay Krishna Barman, who held a high-level meeting with state forest officials in Sukna in Darjeeling on Saturday, raised objection over the fence along the international border by Nepal.

Barman said the fencing blocks the natural movement of the elephants.

“The state government has already written a letter to the Centre to take up the matter with the Nepal government,” Barman said.

Every year hundreds of elephants migrate from the forests of Assam and West Bengal into Nepal through the Indo-Nepal border and destroy crops in the villages on both sides.

The animals follow a traditional corridor to reach places like Bahundangi in eastern Nepal under Jhapa district after crossing forests of Sukna and Panighata in Darjeeling district of West Bengal.

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