The people of Kombukuthi, a village near Mundakkayam that shares its border with the Periyar Tiger Reserve (PTR) on three sides, have been spending sleepless nights for nearly two weeks now.
The fear of a leopard lurking around the plantations here has forced them stay awake at nights and keep an eye on their livestock.
Forest Department has deployed local watchers to attend to the eventualities while camera traps too have been set up at different locations to monitor the straying of wildlife.
The animal, however, is yet to be traced.
The leopard episode, according to officials with the Forest department, is just the latest in a series of similar incidents to be reported from the villages across Kottayam and Pathanamthitta districts that abut the PTR. Though no human casualties have been reported so far, life and property of the residents in these habitats are always at risk with frequent wildlife raids round the year, especially during the summer seasons.
“Instances of leopards, king cobras, wild elephants, etc. straying into the villages along the forest fringes have become more frequent in recent times. These raids, which have taken place frequently across the seasons, cause widespread loss of agriculture and even constructions,’‘ noted an official.
Recent incident
To back the point, he also pointed to a recent incident in which a herd of wild elephants crossed the Pampa river and unleashed damage across the farming areas of Kurumbanmuzhy and Arayanjilimon under the Ranni forest division.
Sources, meanwhile, sought to attribute the increasing frequency of raids to the water scarcity and shortage of food inside the forests during the summer months. Excessive human interventions in the forests including the stone quarrying activities have led to depletion of green cover and groundwater table in many areas.
“The crops and cattle on the forest fringes provide easy feed to the wild animals, forcing the wildlife to stray out of their natural habitat,” they said. In view of the raging protests, officials with the Forest Department have been on their toes to ward off the rising tide of attacks. “The solar fencing erected around the farmlands to ward off wild elephants remain destroyed at several locations and a proposal has been submitted to the State government for revamping the damaged structure. Similarly, local watchers are being deployed at locations that have reported a higher frequency of attacks,” said Rajesh, Divisional Forest Officer, Kottayam.
