The West Bengal Forest Department has decided to set up anti-electrocution cells that will identify sagging high-tension electrical lines and monitor illegal electric fences to prevent deaths of elephants in the north districts.
The development comes after the Calcutta High Court took suo motu cognizance of increasing unnatural deaths of wildlife particularly elephants and passed certain directions. According to the figures available in the past five years, 25 elephants died due to electrocution with nine being recorded in this year alone.
In a meeting earlier this month attended by both the Forest and the Power departments, several other decisions like identification of corridors used by elephants and rewards for individuals for reporting sagged lines were taken.
“Tea garden managements may not be encouraging the illegal electric fences but the labour colony has individual electric connections and they are setting them up to prevent ingress of elephants into their colony leading to accidents,” a note from the minutes of the meeting of the two departments read.
North Bengal is home to nearly 490 elephants but the forests are lined with three gardens with human habitation and are fragmented. Most of the incidents of electrocution have been reported in Alipurduar and Jalpaiguri districts.
According to the data tabled in Parliament earlier this year, West Bengal, Odisha and Assam account for half of both human and elephant deaths in the overall human-elephant conflicts. Among the reasons for the unnatural deaths of elephants, electrocution is at the top of the list accounting for almost 67% deaths in the country. Assam accounted for 66 electrocution deaths, followed by Odisha (57) and Bengal (39).
Senior Forest department officials said arrests were made when it has been found that illegal fences have resulted in the death of elephants.
