Kaziranga: The increasing human-elephant conflicts have again come to light. A huge herd of wild elephants attacked the Chepena Kubua village last night and caused considerable damage. This reaffirms the continuous alarming entry of the wild tuskers into human habitats that further threatens the lives of the local communities.
According to the residents, a herd of nearly seventy elephants wandered out of the national park at night, causing terror among the locals. This group attacked the house belonging to Rubi Khound. The attack resulted in damage to household effects, the fishery, and crops. However, the woman managed to escape the attack along with her daughters.
Despite the absence of reported human life casualties, this tragedy has left a wake of destruction and pain. The arrival of the forest department quickly brought the elephants back into their habitat, but for the likes of the Khound family, whose economic and vulnerable conditions made life a daily struggle, this tragedy has proven to be a devastating setback for them.
The human–elephant conflict is becoming a serious phenomenon in the areas around Kaziranga, with an increasing number of encounters between humans and elephants in their quest for food and water. The reduction in forest corridors, encroachment on the boundaries of animal habitats, and changes in the seasons often result in the elephants roaming through human settlement areas, thus exposing them to encounters with humans.
Experts have emphasised the imperative for long-term mitigation efforts such as the enhancement of elephant corridors, early warning systems, community outreach, and compensation to affected families. Though Kaziranga remains a success story in wildlife conservation around the globe, such occurrences bring to the fore the imperatives of sharing the environmentally friendly habitat with the wildlife.
As the villagers remain under the ever-present threat of incursion by the elephants, the case at Chepena Kubua serves to remind conservation efforts that the lives of the people inhabiting the borders of the conservation zones must never be overlooked.