Forest dept's solar fences fail to deter wild animals
The department has erected 45 km of solar fencing in several stretches around the Wayanad sanctuary, to prevent wild animals from entering the paddy fields, coffee estates, coconuts groves and tribal settlements near the forest
It has been envisaged that wild animals, coming into contact with the fence, would get a shock generated through high-voltage pulses, deterring them from entering the settlements and farmlands.
"Though they were effective initially, we have now found that these fences were snapped at several places, and the elephants are breaking into the farm area once again," said a senior forest official posted at the Wayand wildlife sanctuary.
Forest officials said these fences required regular maintenance and full-time watchers were to be appointed to repair them.
"At many places, the fences have become ineffective as wild creepers have short-circuited the power and quite often the fences are breached when elephants, in a fit of rage, damage them," said an official.
Last year, 10 people were killed in wild elephant attacks, and several other farmers lost lakhs of rupees worth farm-produce as these pachyderms repeatedly trampled their fields.
"Even the trenches dug to prevent elephants from entering the farms have got filled. The trenches are not a fool-proof method," said Dhanesh Kumar, district forest officer in Wayand.
Senior forest officials said innovative solutions should be created to stop the increasing man-animal conflict in the buffer zone of all wildlife parks and sanctuaries in the state.
"These buffer zones were once dense forests and an integral part of the wildlife movement. But over the years, they became human settlements and forest lands were converted into farmlands. But the wild animals, like elephants, use these passages instinctively to move from one part of the forest to the other as these routes have been ingrained in their memory. Moreover, they enter the farmlands as there is good fodder now,'' said Raja Raja Verma, principal chief conservator of forests.
Forest officials recommended changing the crop pattern to flower-crops from food crops that the elephants like.
"If there is just one or two families staying in the buffer zone, blocking the wildlife movement, then the state should think of rehabilitating the families instead of putting them in constant life-threatening situations,'' the official said
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