Human deaths in encounter with elephants in Odisha, a cause of concern, says WSO
The Hindu
Odisha reports highest human-elephant conflict deaths in India, raising concerns among wildlife experts about escalating fatalities and habitat disruption.
Wildlife experts expressed concerns over steep rise in human lives in human-elephant conflict in Odisha with the State losing 171 lives in 2024-25 – highest in the country.
According to study conducted by Wildlife Society of Orissa (WSO), an environmental pressure group, the State topped human deaths in 2024-25 with 171 deaths, followed by Jharkhand (87), West Bengal (53), Assam (74) and Tamil Nadu (61).
“Over the last five years 2019-2024 Odisha recorded the highest cumulative death of 624 deaths across India revealing the extremely high levels of conflict,” said Biswajit Mohanty. WSO Secretary and former member of National Biodiversity Board, on Friday.
According to “Status of Elephants in India: DNA based synchronous all India population estimation of elephants” (2025) census carried out by Wildlife Institute of India, Odisha has 912 elephants, compared to Karnataka’s 6,013, Assam’s 4,159, Kerala’s 2,785 and Tamil Nadu’s 3,136. Uttarkhand (1,792), West Bengal (707) and Chattisgarh (451).
“Since 2019-20, human kills by elephants in Odisha rose sharply crossing 115. Since then, it has been on the rise consistently crossing reaching all time high of 171 in 2024-25,” he said.
As per WSO estimation, February 10, 2026, the highest human kills in Odisha has been recorded in Dhenkanal district (24) followed by Keonjhar (28), Mayurbhanj(15), Angul (13), Sundergarh (12) , Deogarh (5) in 2025-26.
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