Assam: Human deaths in tiger attacks pose a fresh challenge

Staff Reporter

GUWAHATI: The death of four humans in tiger attacks in 2024 tends to give a new dimension to the human-animal conflicts in Assam that, more often than not, witness casualties in man-elephant conflicts.

Reports of elephants trembling humans keep coming from various areas in the state every year. During the four-year period from 2020 to 2023, the state had no loss of human life in tiger attacks. However, in 2024 the state recorded the death of four people in tiger attacks, a fact that is indicative of man and tiger remaining in conflict zones in the state.

The Nagaon district had several conflicts with tigers in 2024 when some villagers had to stay indoors for days together with the apprehension of tiger attacks. Personnel from the Forest Department had to patrol villages where markets and other business establishments had to keep their shutters down.

As many as 73 people lost their lives in tiger attacks in 2024. Assam is the lone state from the Northeast that lost human lives in tiger attacks last year.

This unhealthy development has put an added responsibility on the Forest Department, which has to struggle a lot to keep the man-elephant conflicts in the state at bay.

Villagers inhabiting areas that are near tiger habitats need awareness to tackle the new menace.

Meanwhile, as many as 383 people lost their lives in elephant attacks in Assam from 2019-20 to 2023-24. The breakup is 75 in 2019-20, 91 in 2020-21, 63 in 2021-22, 80 in 2022-23, and 74 in 2023-24.

  Section 11 of the Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972 (amended in 2022), empowers the state Chief Wildlife Warden for management of human-wildlife conflict situations.

 Also read: Assam: Man killed in tiger attack in Bokakhat

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