Human-animal conflicts in the country have been a matter of concern both for people and the authorities. During the three years of 2014-15, 2015-16 & 2016-17, there were 1356 human deaths due to elephants alone in the country; of which 178 human deaths were reported from the State of Jharkhand. Parimal Nathwani, Rajya Sabha Member asked the details of human-animal conflicts and loss of the human lives as well as damages to the crops by wild animals during the last three years.
In accordance with the answer tabled in the Upper House by Dr Mahesh Sharma, Minister of State for Environment, Forest and Climate Change; there were 201 human deaths caused by elephants to November, 2017 during the year 2017-18 in the country of which 38 human deaths were in the State of Jharkhand.
The Minister also stated that there were as many as 49 incidents of tiger attacks on human beings during the last three years and the current year in and around Tiger Reserves in various States of the country. However, no such incident reported from the State of Jharkhand. The Minister informed that the human-animal conflicts is handled by the State Government and the Ministry has issued guidelines in context of human-wild animal conflicts to the Chief Wildlife Wardens of all the State Governments and Union Territories’ Administration.
There is a mechanism to mitigate human-animal conflicts, which include provisions under Sec. 11 & 12 of Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972 which inter-alia empower the Chief Wildlife Wardens and Authorised officers to handle the problematic wild animals responsible for damage and destruction of crops. Also, there are standard Operating Procedures (SOP)/ Guidelines for management of problematic animals like Tigers, Elephants, Leopards, Rhinos etc., which are used by the respective State Governments. The minister’s statement said.
The details of the loss of human lives due to elephant and tiger during the last three years is given below.