'To avoid confrontation, don't worship elephants;' Drunken pachyderms rampage thru Indian villages

Assam state in India has about 5000 elephants running around, causing havoc and consuming alcohol, reported a story on The Agonist today. The elephants have killed at least 22 people in the state this year. This maybe related to the fact that 100,000 acres in the state were cleared by humans since 1996.

(Indo-Asian News Service) Ranchi, Oct 5 : Don't store liquor. Don't go out into the forests drunk. Don't worship elephants. And move only in groups at night.

These are among a list of do's and don'ts brought out by the forest department of Jharkhand in a bid to check the growing cases of man-elephant conflict that have resulted in the deaths of over 300 villagers here in the last four years.

Huge posters carrying these do's and don'ts have been put up in areas where elephants often stray and damage crops and property and sometimes even kill people.

The villagers have been advised not to store 'mahua' (a substance from which local brew is prepared) in their homes.

Elephants can smell 'mahua' from a distance of three to five kilometres. Intoxicated by it, elephants often attack villages and houses and trample anyone coming in their way.

Villagers have also been asked not to move out of their homes in an inebriated condition. "Sometimes a person who is drunk mistakes an elephant for a hillock and tries to climb it. This irritates the beast who in turn attacks the person, resulting in his death," said a forest department official.

Worshipping of elephants, an animal considered by many as a divine incarnation, has also been put on the don'ts list.

"Every elephant is not trained to accept the worship and when they feel threatened they attack human beings," said another forest official.

The villagers have been asked not to venture into the forest after sunset to collect firewood. In case it became necessary to step into jungle at night, the posters advise the villagers to move in groups and carry with them torches, drums and other tools to drive away elephants in case they are confronted by elephant herds.

Posted by HongPong at November 13, 2004 04:38 PM
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