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JSE A bleak future for India's starving elephants
January 21, 2007 Edition 2
Starving elephants in India's West Bengal state rampaged through a school kitchen, gobbling up rice and lentils and forcing the school to close for the day.
As forest habitat is felled to make way for homes and farms, the country's remaining elephant population is providing a jumbo-sized problem for rural officials and wildlife activists.
London's Daily Telegraph cited Animesh Bose, head of West Bengal's Himalayan Nature and Adventure Foundation.
"Elephants are migratory animals and move from one forest to the other through corridors which have often been lost due to villages that have sprung up in the past few decades," said Bose. Wild Asian elephant numbers have plummeted from about 50 000 a century ago. In 2002, 26 400 roamed India's national parks and forests, but in the first comprehensive elephant census published in 2005, this had fallen to just 21 300 animals.
Towards the end of last year the environment ministry's Forest Survey of India also reported a steady depletion of forest land in 11 major wildlife reserves since 1997. Only 20% of the country is forested and less than 4% is suitable for the beleaguered jumbos.
The Daily Telegraph said a forest bandit, Koose Muniswamy Veerappan (who was shot dead by police in 2004), was thought to have slaughtered hundreds of elephants in southern India as he amassed a fortune smuggling ivory and sandalwood.
Trains have been known to kill elephants crossing railway tracks, while the recent land rights given to millions of poor forest dwellers paints an even bleaker picture for the country's wildlife. As the destruction of their habitat continues unabated, elephant herds are becoming fragmented, ever smaller in number and are breeding poorly.
The Centre for Science and Environment in New Delhi said that last year three million people were living in protected areas, including sanctuaries, parks and reserves.
The country's population grew by 20% between 1991 and 2001 and now tops one billion.
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