Free-roaming wild elephants a recurring theme in Kothamangalam in Kerala

Wild tuskers invading Kothamangalam, Kerala, causing human-animal conflict, deaths, and protests, demanding authorities address long-pending demands.

The havoc wreaked by free-roaming wild elephants invading residential areas has become a life-and-death issue especially for people residing along the forest fringes in Kothamangalam along Ernakulam district’s eastern suburbs in Kerala.

The issue has assumed electoral significance as well of late with the rival fronts engaged in a blame game over the human-animal conflict that has been taking a toll on the lives, livelihoods and properties of the people for long. The death of a 45-year-old man, Eldhose, at Urulanthanni in the predominantly tribal and far-flung panchayat of Kuttampuzha in the Kothamangalam Assembly constituency on Monday (December 16, 2024) appears to have triggered a people’s uprising of sorts that authorities are likely to find hard to contain unless their long-pending demands are fulfilled.

“Wild animal invasion remains a serious threat in all 17 wards of Kuttampuzha panchayat that accounts for about 15 tribal hamlets,” said Kanthi Vellakayyan, Kuttampuzha panchayat president.

She was at the forefront of the more than six hours-long protest staged in Pinavoorkudy ward of the panchayat, preventing authorities from moving the body to the hospital since the death of Eldhose on Monday night.

The death was not the first even in the ward. Santhosh, 48, was killed by a wild tusker in the Pinavoorkudy tribal settlement colony when he had gone to take a bath in the river in June 2022. The death had triggered a protest, though not on the same scale as was witnessed on Monday, by the enraged public.

The Kothamangalam town was turned into a veritable battlefield as the protesting Congress activists and the police clashed after the former staged a protest with the body of a woman killed by a wild elephant on March 4, 2024. The body of the woman killed at Kanjiraveli, near Adimaly, was brought to the Kothamangalam Taluk Hospital. After the day-long protest, the police swooped down late night to arrest Mathew Kuzhalnadan, MLA, and Ernakulam district Congress committee president Mohammed Shiyas for leading the protest.

The threat posed by wild elephants was brought to the fore again as recently as last Saturday. Ann Mary C., a 21-year-old engineering student who was riding pillion with her friend was killed when a large tree branch fell on her head reportedly when an elephant uprooted a palm tree at Chembankuzhy in Kavalangad panchayat in Kothamangalam taluk.