Prudent use of technology and diligence in the field is actually working now in avoiding wild elephants coming in conflict with human population in Gudalur in The Nilgiris.
After using the kumkis, local site effective driving gears such as the pepper aerosol spray, chilly ropes to the Gudalur elephant problem, Chief Wildlife Warden Shekhar Kumar Niraj instructed the forest officials to use digital wireless network and the drones.
After deploying drones from Nilgiris and Gudalur, the elephants have not been found coming out from sholas. Since the elephants usually come to depredate during the night hours and monitoring becomes difficult, the local forest officials were guided to use the drones during the day time to locate the elephants and send the kumkis to push them deeper into the forests towards Kerala and Mudumalai Tiger Reserve (MTR), said Mr. Niraj.
“This combined use of technology and field work is working as elephants are not coming out of sholas,” he said. No untoward incident has happened during the past few nights due to the wild elephants and at present they are loitering along Kerala border. “The prudent use of technology and diligence in the field actually work,” Mr. Niraj said.
Watch: Drone captures elephant movements in Gudalur forest
Officials said the two wild elephants had returned to the human habitation around Devala after a few months with one of them raiding for salt and food. Four kumkis have been deployed to drive these wild elephants back into the sholas and towards Kerala-side.
Gudalur has been in the centre of the human-elephant conflict for the past few decades with research studies indicating that the disappearance of forest cover and swamp lands, and the associated micro habitats, had led to this trend.
The death of humans, more males than females, after attacked by the wild elephants and the number of deaths of elephants caused by human beings has also been high in the Gudalur range in the past few decades. Likewise, the property damaged by elephants has also been high in the range, studies show.
Activists say the long term solution is to secure the elephant corridors and in the short term, the government should immediately stop and remove encroachments in the Pandalur forests as they act as migratory paths.
