The only solution?

Dear All
 
    It seems that not a day goes by without some sad news from Assam, usually the sadness is felt by humans who are losing their crops, their livelihoods and sometimes their lives to elephants who, through loss of their traditional feeding areas and migration corridors find themselves rubbing shoulders with human settlement.
 
    The temptation to taste the crops of farmers is just too much, from time to time we hear of a school's grain store being raided or of a whisky still being taken (there is some debate as to whether the elephants are partial to the alcohol or merely the smell of fermenting grain).
 
    I have been following poor old Laden's (see below) story for a week or so now as it reminded me of the book To The Elephant Graveyard by Tarquin Hall - the book describes a hunt for a similar wild elephant in Assam some years ago.  It manages to deal with the complexities of deciding when an elephant is rogue and the emotions of the hunter paid to kill a beast he reveres and respects.
 
    I only hope that the rifleman hired to stop Laden did so with the same respect and sadness.  The rarity of these cases when a dangerous wild elephant is declared 'rogue' and destroyed, under the immense pressure of nightly raids and the anger of the local population so often spelled out, leads me to believe that those in charge in Assam still take these decisions heavily, in the world's largest Democracy it would be all to easy to buy votes by declaring war on the elephants.
 
Rogue elephant 'Laden' killed in Assam
Daily News and Analysis
December 16, 2006  

GUWAHATI: Laden, a rogue wild Asiatic elephant that was wreaking havoc in Assam, was on Saturday shot dead on state orders.

A wildlife official said the 10-feet tall male tusk-less elephant was killed by a hunter at the Behali tea plantation in Sonitpur district, 240 km north of Guwahati.

"Licensed hunter Dipen Ram Phukan and a team of forest rangers shot dead Laden as the elephant was moving around aimlessly and trying to enter a human settlement area," wildlife warden Chandan Bora said.

"Local villagers identified the elephant as Laden and our team verified the identity before shooting," he added.

The elephant, named Laden by locals after global terrorist Osama bin Laden, was proclaimed a rogue in July and authorities ordered that the pachyderm be killed by Dec 31. 

"Laden was responsible for killing at least 14 people in and around the area where he was shot dead after a massive hunt," Bora said. On Wednesday, the elephant had killed a woman near a reserved forest area.

"Laden was a terror for the people. Two earlier attempts to kill the elephant had failed as Laden always managed to evade our forest teams," he added. "The killing of the rampaging elephant has come as a big relief for the locals."

In Assam, depredation by wild elephants is common. The last time an elephant was declared a rogue and killed by a licensed hunter was in 2004. During the past fortnight, herds of wild elephants have been terrorising several parts of Assam, especially in villages where tribals brew rice beer.

Experts say wild elephants have been moving out of the jungles in search of food with more and more people encroaching upon animal corridors, leading to an increasing number of elephant attacks on villages.

Elephants have killed 248 people in Assam in the past five years while 268 elephants have died during the same period, many of who were victims of retaliation by angry humans, said a wildlife department report released last month.

Villagers often poisoned marauding elephants or drove them away by beating drums or bursting firecrackers.

Assam has India's largest population of Asiatic elephants, estimated at 5,300, according to a wildlife census in 2002.


Article at the following link:
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Melissa Groo
Save the Elephants News Service Researcher
For further information on elephants please see Save the Elephants' web site
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This Save the Elephants project is supported by the International Elephant Foundation.
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Please note that we cannot guarantee the accuracy of any news story. In addition, we do not endorse any of the views expressed therein. We simply try to represent fairly what is in the media on elephants. If a reader finds inaccuracies in an article, we are happy to circulate corrections, if these can be verified.
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Posted by John Roberts at Sat, 23 Dec 2006 07:33:00 GMT
Categories: Regional Elephants
 
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