West Bengal, March 21: Wild animals such as elephants are increasingly coming into the contact of humans and the result is devastating. The man-elephant conflicts in particular have become a source of worry in India as the shrinking forest space could mean more casualties in future.
Recently ANI reported a horrible attack that shook West Bengal’s Burdwan when 4 people were killed while 2 others were injured.
Here is the video:
#WATCH: Elephant attacks a man in Monteswar village of West Bengal's Burdwan, throws him.https://t.co/ksNtL94EQG
— ANI (@ANI_news) March 20, 2016
This latest man-elephant conflict took place after the two elephants got detached from their groups in Galsi and Chandul in Burdwan last Saturday.
Last month too, an elephant damaged 100 houses when it strayed into residential area of Siliguri, West Bengal while just two days later another elephant entered the Ambari village in West Bengal early on 11th February and killed one man and four domestic cows.
Many a times the elephants stray into human area in search of food and water as most resources are getting absorbed for the human consumption. This interaction often confuses both the man and the elephant as the two did not have any historical contact with each other and as a result a man-elephant conflict takes place.
Like in the current case of the man-elephant conflict in Burdwan an elephant also lost its life along with the humans.
The adult elephant was one of the four who killed 4 people to control him he was tranquilized but was found dead on Monday morning.
It is likely that there was no foul play and the elephant lost his life due to over-excitement or dehydration, yet, this death could have been stopped if we would have paid heed to the cries of the struggling wildlife.
Animals like elephants need bigger spaces to live but we have snatched away their land and with their food resources depleted, rampant poaching, and dwindling water supplies these gentle giants have nowhere else to go.
The human lives who are lost due to mismanagement of our wildlife is every bit the problem of this country as these lives could have been saved. In fact to state that the man-elephant conflicts can be avoided if we only have the willpower to do so isn’t entirely wrong.
But will someone pay heed to this aspect of the problem?
