The Koundinya wildlife sanctuary in Chittoor district has lost six of its 41 elephants due to causes ranging from electrocution to old age in this year alone.
The sanctuary, located at the tri-State junction of A.P., Tamil Nadu and Karnataka, is spread over 500 sq km and has been a safe haven for elephants for decades ever since elephants first appeared here in the 1980s. Apart from being a home to the existing 35 elephants, the sanctuary is also part of the Hosur-Krishnagiri-Koundinya elephant corridor.
Breakaway herds from the Kuppam region formed another safe haven in Seshachalam biosphere spread over the Chamala valley, Talakona reserve forest and Rajampeta division of Kadapa where they are protected from the risk of electrocution, unlike Koundinya.
Apart from the risk of getting electrocuted, there are other threats faced by Koundinya elephants, such as communicable diseases, scarcity of fodder and water, and shrinking habitat due to encroachments on forest fringes and denudation.
Deadly toll
This year took a mighty toll on the elephant population in Koundinya with six fatalities. Between June and July, three elephants were found dead, of which two were electrocuted while one was believed to have succumbed to injuries sutained in a fight with other elephants, in Ramakuppam, V. Kota and Baireddipalle mandals.
After the electrocution deaths were reported, a series of awareness camps were held to dissuade villagers from erecting live wires in fields but the efforts failed to produce results.
Between August and December, three more elephants were electrocuted. In October, two wild elephants entered the Koundinya sanctuary through the Karnataka forests and were electrocuted in fields near Irala after coming in contact with live wires meant to ward off wild boars. Immediately after the incident, villagers in the area secretly buried the giant male elephants’ carcasses and the issue surfaced only after three weeks of the incident. The episode exposed the fragile conservation measures of the Forest Department.
In December, another large pachyderm was electrocuted in fields near Palamaner when it came in contact with an overhead 11KV power line. Senior forest officials said that despite repeated appeals to the power department officials to make alternative measures for transformers and overhead cables in the sanctuary zone, no action was being taken.
Crop raids
Though the Forest Department claims to have arranged solar fencing and elephant-proof trenches in the sanctuary zone from Kuppam to Bangarupalem at a cost of over ₹40 crore, 2019 saw the worst crop raids by the jumbos. For the first time in recent years, several herds chose to move far away from the sanctuary belt, reaching as far as Somala and Pakala. Forest officials went to great lengths to drive the animals back into the forests, with each assignment taking over a fortnight or a month, as the pachyderms continued to linger close to the fields.
The silver lining to a depressing year came in the form of a ₹50 lakh donation by the Indian Oil Corporation Limited (IOCL) towards buying GPS collars which, when tagged to the elephants, would help forest officials track their movements.
