Residents of Haripur Kalan and Pathri villages who are living on the boundary of Rajaji National Park and Tiger Reserve have struggled for years fighting for their safety from the elephants that regularly raid the farm lands and destroy their crops. Apart from the elephants, the leopards also tend to maul or prey on the domesticated animals of the villagers. On Tuesday morning some morning walkers from Haripur Kalan village had to run for their lives when they spotted a wild elephant standing in front of a house on the road. The pachyderm entered the residential locality and demolished the boundary wall to enter the farm where the wheat crop was standing. A leopard had mauled a villager in this same village a month ago.
Even the townships in Pathri area under Laksar tehsil has the jumbos visiting them quite often in search of food resulting in crushing of plantations and ornamental plants. The sugarcane crop which has been harvested is being guarded by the villagers these days.
More efforts are needed to find ways of protecting wildlife and the villages bordering the Rajaji tiger reserve forest area. The measures taken by the park authorities to increase the elephant fodder in the park area seem to be insufficient, since the number of elephant raids has increased in the past few years. Speaking to The Pioneer, a resident of Haripur Kalan, Madan Mohan said, “While strolling in the morning, we saw an elephant standing in front of a house and stepped back silently but it trumpeted and started marching towards us. We were scared but it then entered the residential compound and we were saved.” The elephant kept on trumpeting for long outside the house due to which others in the locality also became concerned for their safety, said another local Sunil Kumar.
In Pathri village, an elephant destroyed several hectares of crop a fortnight ago. A farmer from that area Khursheed Ali told this correspondent, “We have approached the forest department to save our crops from the raiding elephants. We save our harvested crops by switching on tractor lights and beating drums to keep elephants at bay. Many a time leopards have also been spotted in the area where they prey on our goats and cattle.”
There has been a spurt in the cases of jumbos raiding paddy crop and sugarcane fields in several villages in Haridwar, Bahadrabad, Jagjeetpur, Misserpur, Dhanori and Laksar areas. Nine people had been reportedly killed in the Haridwar-Rishikesh region in the year 2010 by pachyderms. In 2011, five people were killed in Khanpur and Laldhang area of Haridwar district. A 50 year old man from Van Gujjar community was trampled to death by an elephant Kotavali range at Laldhang village in Haridwar district last year. This year a man sustained seriously injury at Baswali village near Haridwar range in SIIDCUL area during a chance encounter with an elephant.
“The problem began when these forest areas were converted into farmlands,” says environmentalist Brijesh Upadhyay. “More and more new settlements by villagers are pushing right up to the park boundary and some have even encroached into the forest reserve. The population density in the areas on the boundaries of park has become very high. As a result the competition for resources between humans and wildlife has intensified,” says the environmentalist. Many incidents of human-wildlife conflict have come to fore in the past and foresters have not been able to find a permanent solution to curb this conflict problem.
Regarding this issue Haridwar range officer Dinesh Naudiyal said, “Dispersal of seeds of mix variety of flora in the park area is done during the closure period of the park so that elephants get enough of fodder inside the park. This year more fodder is being planted for the elephants. ”