Jumbo task at hand

The thriving Asian elephant population in the State forest ranges poses a challenge to the government to come up with effective solutions to avoid human-wildlife conflict

Only four days ago, four elephants of a herd of 18 dwelling in the forest near Katragadda village of Bhamini mandal in Parvatipuram-Manyam district were electrocuted while moving in search of food and water.

Meanwhile, six days ago, two human lives were lost as wild elephants trampled them to death in two separate incidents, drawing attention to the severity of this human-wildlife conflict.

The pachyderm problem in the State started in the late 1970s, the reappearance of the Asian elephants, after a hiatus of two centuries, at the tri-state junction of Kuppam in the Chittoor district came as a big surprise to the locals and the Forest Department.

Season after season, the number of migratory jumbos coming from the Western Ghats spread over Karnataka, Kerala, and Tamil Nadu kept rising.

A small herd of elephants from the Kuppam division had crossed into the Seshachalam biosphere in the mid-1980s, never to make a return.

For those pachyderms which became residents of the forests between Bangarupalem and Kuppam mandals in the Chittoor district, the government of Andhra Pradesh created the Kaundinya Elephant Project, a sanctuary, in 1990.

At present, the combined population of wild elephants, both residents and migrants, in the Kaundinya sanctuary and the Seshachalam ranges of the Annamayya and Tirupati districts is estimated to be around 200.