Thirsty elephants damage agricultural fields in Tamil Nadu

Periyanaickenpalayam (Tamil Nadu), Mar 8 (ANI): A herd of elephants in search of water entered agricultural fields near Periyanaikenpalyam in Coimbatore and damaged standing crops causing extensive damage.

Farmers said that this transmigration of herds of jumbos has become a regular feature. It also a cause of concern since the pachyderms tend to damage agricultural fields.

However, the forest rangers have opined that the wild elephants migrate to the human settlements in search of food and water.

"May be the animals might have come out to have a dip in the water, in the pond actually. They actually love to get into this kind of stream. We don't have this kind of ponds within the forest area because the forest as such is very sloppy and hilly. So, when there is a pond nearby the forest, we find that in many cases the elephants during summer love to come out of the forest," said Anwardin, Divisional Forest Officer (DFO), Coimbatore.

Forest rangers also mentioned that now they are monitoring the movement of the wild elephants and track these as and when they head towards agricultural fields.

Incidents of man-animal conflict are common with the depletion of forest areas, and cases of animals straying into areas inhabited by humans for food are common.

India has more than 50 per cent of the majestic and intelligent Asiatic elephants but the population has been dwindling due to frequent poaching.

It is estimated that 45,000 elephants are left in the wild, down from more than 100,000 a century ago as compared to 600,000 of their larger-eared African cousins. A subspecies in Borneo numbers little more than 1,000 animals. (ANI)