North Bengal villagers adopt unique approach to keep elephants at bay

 KOLKATA: Residents of a village in North Bengal have adopted a unique approach to keep wild tuskers from entering the boundaries in search of food and thus avoiding human-elephant conflict (HEC).

The residents of Latabari village under Kalchini development block in Alipurduar district, where HEC is quite common, have started keeping some favourite tusker foods at the entry point to the village for quite some time now.

As reported by the local villagers, the initiative has worked miracles, as the tuskers, being satisfied by the food, do not try to infiltrate in search of food and create havoc, a feature that was quite frequent in the recent past.

“The villagers of late have been stocking whatever agricultural products they produce at the entry points to these villages. It can be anything from a few kilogrammes of rice or a few pumpkins, which have worked miracles. The state forest department is doing a case study in the matter and considering starting an awareness campaign on this count in other pockets of West Bengal, both in North Bengal and South Bengal, which are prone to HEC,” a department official said.

When contacted, the former Principal Chief Conservator of Forests in West Bengal, Atanu Raha, told IANS that this is a very old practise followed by some tribal villagers in North Bengal that the residents of his particular village panchayat have revived.

”This practise of reserving a portion of their agricultural produce for the elephants and stocking them at the entry points to the villages was prompted by a religious feeling that, being satisfied by that food, the elephant god would not enter the villages and create havoc. But slowly, as people started becoming selfish, that practise faded out gradually. It is heartening to hear that the residents of this particular village panchayat have revived the old practise, and I hope that residents of villages elsewhere that are prone to HEC adopt the same approach,” Raha said.

He also claimed that there was a scientific reason behind this approach, which involved elephant psychology.

“First, these elephants are excellent food managers. They know that they can compensate for the daily food requirement of around 300 kg of jungle flora with just 50 kilogrammes of paddy. So rightly, these villagers are stocking items like paddy or pumpkins at the entry points since these food items satisfy the elephants most,” Raha added.

Secondly, he said, often elephants invading jungle-adjacent villages destroy more crops than they actually consume.

“In addition to that elephant invasion, it involves collateral damages like the destruction of the shelters of the villagers. So, if these tuskers get their favourite food at the village entry points, they will avoid entering the villages,” Raha added. (IANS)

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