Mundakkayam: From elephants to wild boars, hordes of wild animals have been terrorizing the people living in the fringes of forests along the hill ranges of Kerala. Wild elephants looking for food had laid to waste farms and plantations in Mundakkayam, Erumeli and Koruthode panchayats adjoining the Western Ghats.
The elephant outing has become more frequent in the past two years. The beasts have trodden through at least 50 acres of cultivated land last year in Pamba Valley, Angel Valley, Kalaketti, Punchavayal, 504 Colony and Pulikkunnu. They visited the Mathamba and Kanankavayal areas even in broad daylight a month ago.
Elephants are not the only wild animals looking for food in human habitats. Gaurs are increasingly straying out of forests into the villages. The only protection against wild animals in these areas is a solar fence installed at Pulikkunnu three weeks ago.
The animal incursion is a man-made disaster. Large-scale clearing of elephant corridors forced the beasts to look for new pastures. The forest department cleared 500 acres of forest in the Karithode area to plant teak for timber and put up solar fence to keep off elephants. With prime feeding ground fenced off, elephants and other animals are left with no choice but to raid the plantations.
Sleepless nights
The forest department has 3,115.307 hectares of land in the Erumeli range. As much as 3,023.321 hectares of this land grow nothing but teak. Elephant raids are particularly harsh in this area. The beasts which occasionally ventured into farms adjoining forests have become desperate enough to raid faraway human habitats in search of food. The elephants find the scent of ripening jackfruits particularly irresistible.
A herd of elephants raised a scare at Pulikkunnu when they descended to the road. A motorcycle rider who fled the animals landed in a pit.
The villagers are often woken up from their sleep by the crashing of big trees, a sure sign of elephant presence. The people just wait out the incursion with bated breath inside the darkness of their houses. Elephants are almost always present in the forest roads of Kalaketti.
Farmers also dread the wild boars which have been raiding the farms at night.
The only methods available to the farmers to keep away the animals are to make loud noises to scare them away. They beat tin drums and burst crackers to protect the crops from the invaders. They also rely on rustic techniques like driving sharp nails into the trunks of big trees to chase away the elephants who rub against those trees.
Wilder ones
Adding to the panic, villagers found a bear trapped in a well in Kombukuthi village recently. The forest officers fished out the bear a day later but it did not survive the fall.
Villagers in forest fringes were shocked to see the tracks of what looked like that of a leopard but forest officers dismissed the possibility and said the tracks belonged to a wild cat.
