In Kerala, an interesting case of elephant–human conflict has resulted in protests and counter-protests and brought the plight of tuskers starved by official apathy, politics and monoculture eucalyptus plantations to the fore.
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ON January 22, Palakkad Tusker-7 (PT7), a wild elephant encroaching upon a human settlement, was tranquilised, moved into a truck by two kumkis (trained elephants to tame wild ones), and caged. He was rechristened as ‘Dhoni’.
The tusker had wreaked havoc in the area for two years. He had destroyed 13 properties and raided nearby crops an estimated 176 times.
In the same month, a few days before PT7 got darted and caged, PM2, another killer tusker in Wayanad, was tranquilised and caged.
Darting the rogue bulls, and capturing and caging them, was the only option left for the Kerala forest department.
So, when a rice tusker (Arikomban), became a menace by raiding houses and public distribution shops for rice, his favourite food, in Munnar, the forest department came up with the same option: dart, capture, cage and tame.
The rice tusker is currently located in Chinnakanal, Munnar. From Chinnakanal, the tusker makes frequent visits to the 301 Colony, where landless Dalit families were rehabilitated between 2001 and 2005, looking for rice. As the tusker raids became a regular thing, many Dalit families moved out from the area fearing for their lives. The few that stayed back have taken shelter on the roofs of their homes.
Interestingly, the rice tusker is not a killer bull. However, when his rice raids started to affect normal life, the forest department decided to step in.
In February, the Kerala chief wildlife warden issued an order authorising the tranquillisation and capture of the rice tusker. The said order gave the following three options to the officers who were tasked with the capture: (i) to tranquilise and radio collar the animal to monitor its movements; (ii) to tranquilise and capture the elephant and shift it to an elephant camp functioning under the forest department; or (iii) to tranquilise, capture and relocate the animal to another habitat.
Interestingly, the high court issued an order on March 23, preventing the capture of the rice tusker, and in a fresh order on March 29, it constituted an expert committee to find the best solution to the issue.
The committee came up with the option of capturing, radio-collaring, and relocating the rice tusker must be to the Muthuvarachal/Orukomban falling within the Parambikulam Tiger Reserve.
According to the committee, Muthuvarachal/Orukomban is part of a larger landscape with plentiful food and water, and natural resources required for the animal’s survival.
The committee also contended that the site of relocation may gradually shape the animal’s behaviour, making it less likely to seek anthropogenic resources over time, and the site is most likely to avoid human–wildlife conflict.
The high court issued an order on April 5 directing the committee’s suggestion be given effect to, and Arikomban be shifted to Muthuvarachal/Orukomban.
Meanwhile, K. Babu, member of legislative assembly (MLA) from Nemmara, where the Parambikulam tiger reserve is located, approached the high court, and pleaded that the relocation of the rice tusker to Parambikulam should not be done. Babu’s review petition cited apprehensions of the residents near the proposed site of translocation about the elephant entering human settlements.
However, the court refused to interfere with its earlier direction to translocate the rice tusker to Parambikulam Tiger Reserve. It remarked that “at the very outset we might observe that we find the apprehension of the petitioner herein to be baseless as there is no material produced by him that would suggest that such anticipated behaviour of the elephant is a certainty.”
It added, “We are also appalled by the total insensitivity demonstrated to the plight of the animal in question, which has been directed to be translocated from its original habitat to a new one only because there is every likelihood that the availability of plentiful natural food and water resources there would deter it from foraging in human settlements.”
While residents in Chinnakanal are holding protests to speed up the relocation of the rice tusker, people in Parambikulam are resisting it, putting the government in a fix.
No permanent solution
Meanwhile, Dr S. Faizi, an ecologist and United Nations environmental negotiator based out of Thiruvananthapuram, told The Leaflet that “there is no permanent solution when it comes to elephant–human conflict“.
“When we move the rogue tusker from one place to another, we are just shifting the problem to the other place,” he said.
According to him, elephants are adaptive animals.
“If we dig a trench separating the village and forest, the elephants will level it. If we put up solar fences, it will break the units and cross over the border. If we tie ropes and keep beehives to thwart the elephants, then the problem will be from bears who will be coming for honey. Additionally, we won’t know in which direction the panicked tusker will run,” Dr Faizi explained.
He added that putting up street lights and forming WhatsApp groups by officials to monitor the elephants’ movement would help.
Interestingly, he said that elephants attack people living in the fringe areas of forests who go for open defecation.
“If we build toilets for people living on the fringe of forests, some 20 percent of such attacks can be reduced,” he opined.
According to data furnished in the Lok Sabha in March by the Union Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change, there are 5,706 elephants in Kerala, of the 29,964 elephants across India (among all states, only Assam has a higher elephant population).
The same document adds that elephants killed 57 people in Kerala between 2019 and 2022.
Human-made crisis
Sukumaran Attappadi, a farmer and farmers’ rights activist in Kerala, said that the increase in human–wildlife conflicts is human-made.
“We cut down the natural forest trees and grew eucalyptus trees instead. These eucalyptus trees will absorb more groundwater, and their seeds falling on the ground will destroy greenery. Eventually, the elephants will cross the border looking for food and water,” Sukumaran said.
Meanwhile, A.K. Saseendran, the Forest and Wildlife Protection Minister in Kerala, posted on his official Facebook page on Friday that, due to practical difficulties in implementing the Kerala High Court’s verdict on Arikomban, on Monday, the state government will approach the Supreme Court for a solution.
