Elephantine journey: Maharashtra’s elephant corridor bodes well for conservation efforts
It has been a lot more than 3 months considering that a herd of wild elephants wandered across the Chhattisgarh border to the forests of Gadchiroli in jap Maharashtra. At first it was imagined that the herd of 22 elephants, which was thought to have arrived on Oct 18, would pass through as other folks had previously. They entered Maharashtra around Kanhargao Tola village, about 25 kilometres from the Chhattisgarh border, trampling some farmland but feeding on nothing at all from around human habitations and attacking no one.
They were being bound for the bordering forests which are thick and blended aged progress, presenting the elephants their favorite young environmentally friendly bamboo shoots and leaves interspersed with patches of grasslands in the forests and the Buchanania lanzan, a deciduous tree that provides seeds that are edible for human beings. Elephants are very captivated to its seeds identified as chironji or charoli. Water far too is freely available since this is the river basin of the Wainganga, Pranhita and Dina rivers. The presence of other wildlife would have reassured the herd of the relative basic safety and ease and comfort of their new environment.
Guarded regions
About 76 for every cent of Gadchiroli is categorized as forest. It is a wildlife-dominated forest landscape with selected Safeguarded Places these types of as the Kolamarka Wild Buffalo Conservation Reserve, the Pranahita Wildlife Sanctuary, the Chaprala Wildlife Sanctuary and the Bhamragadh Wildlife Sanctuary. There is also the Indravati Tiger Reserve in Chhattisgarh, which borders the Kolamarka Reserve in Maharashtra. The confined human presence and the continuous stretches of safeguarded forest parts have encouraged the elephants to discover the space some much more.
The herd arrived listed here soon after an estimated seven to 9 several years of steadily wandering south. Although no experiments have been performed, officials of the Forest Departments of Odisha, Chhattisgarh and Maharashtra have monitored the herd more than the a long time. They say the herd exited Odisha someday in 2013 and then stayed for various intervals in the districts of Kanker, Balod, Gariaband and Dhamtari in Chhattisgarh. They commenced shifting out of Dhamtari in September and entered Maharashtra in Oct.
Shortly following its arrival a calf was born, perhaps offering the herd 1 a lot more cause to settle down for a while. The herd consists of one particular tusker, grownup males and females, two calves that have been with the herd when it crossed more than, and a single calf that was born in December in Maharashtra. A staff of 30 folks from the Forest Office is checking them. While the cause for their wonderful trek is not very clear, it is imagined that the constriction of forested areas, unrestricted development of infrastructure assignments, and mining have pressured the elephants to hold relocating.
Following their entry into Maharashtra, the elephants have been ‘camping’ at different spots. They stayed for months each individual in the Dhanora South and Murumgaon East ranges in north Gadchiroli as effectively as the Wadsa forest division toward west Gadchiroli. All these are heavily forested spots. In the colonial period these were being designated looking blocks where by licences to kill wildlife for ‘sport’ could be acquired. Porla, Holsa, Kanhargaon are all aged hunting blocks—a term, fortunately, no longer in use. In fact, Kanhargaon was recently declared a wildlife sanctuary. It is a welcome declaration mainly because it abuts the Tadoba Tiger Reserve and that’s why extends the protected location for wildlife to wander. The rest, even though not declared as sanctuaries, are component of the much larger reserve forest place. It is in this scenario that the herd is continuing its migration.
Tribal folks compensated
Primarily, the elephants are wandering in and out of the reserve forest, chancing on paddy fields and hamlets and then disappearing again into the safety of forests. Their movements appear to suggest a choice to prevent human habitation. The area populace are mainly tribals, but officers say despite their link with the forests they are apprehensive about the elephants. However, the Forest Department’s attempts have reassured the individuals. When villagers see signals of the herd in their vicinity, they get their possess precautions. They pick to sleep on the terraces of residences instead of mud huts. In appreciation, the Forest Department has been distributing blankets in the villages. Even though the elephants are not feeding on crops in the fields there is some damage as they pass by means of. To additional retain the peace, the Forest Department has been shelling out farmers payment for crops misplaced through the herd’s migration.
In mid-December the herd entered the Brahmapuri forest division in adjoining Chandrapur district. Brahmapuri is throughout the Wainganga river that separates the two districts. This forest division is a tiger-dominated landscape and as this sort of the Forest Office has to usually grapple with very low-degree person-animal conflict circumstances.
The entry of a substantial herd of elephants was a issue of concern for the Forest Section. Standing crops ended up broken when the herd crossed around at evening. Indignant villagers collected, apparently with no strategy, but the Forest Office continue to known as in for police help and dispersed the crowd. By early morning the elephants experienced retraced their steps possibly because of the antagonism but additional likely for the reason that of the paucity of food items.
Brahmapuri’s forest is patchier than Gadchiroli’s and the favorite green bamboo of elephants does not mature as luxuriantly as it does in Gadchiroli. Their food choices suggest that they could migrate to the Tadoba-Andhari Tiger Reserve, which has thick bamboo forests. But to get there they will have to face human-dominated landscapes, which may possibly discourage them. Foods aside, remaining in Gadchiroli may have its negatives for the elephants, specifically in the tendu leaf gathering period when tribal communities spend extensive hrs in the forest collecting the leaves for their earnings.
There seems to be some confusion about whether elephants are endemic to this area of Maharashtra. The Forest Division states there have been no new sightings in the area, apart from a couple of many years back when elephants ended up found near the Chhattisgarh border but did not cross in excess of.
Wild elephants in Maharashtra
The Forest Section has no document of when wild elephants had been previous sighted in Gadchiroli. Elephants ended up employed as soon as in a Forest Department camp in southern Gadchiroli to transfer logs of wooden. According to the summary of a January 2013 exploration paper titled ‘Past, Existing and Long term of Wild Elephants in Maharashtra, India’, authored by Prachi Mehta and Jayant Kulkarni of the Wildlife Analysis and Conservation Culture, “From 2002 onwards, wild elephants commenced extending their selection into Maharashtra Point out from the adjoining Point out of Karnataka. At current, three teams comprising a whole of 11 elephants have turn into resident in Kolhapur and Sindhudurg districts of Maharashtra. The intensity of crop hurt is large simply because the elephants are feeding on plantation crops that are readily available through the yr. From 2002 to 2013, Maharashtra recorded 10,200 crop hurt instances by elephants, 13 elephant deaths and 10 human deaths, and paid out Rs.90,248 million ($1,641 million) as crop payment to farmers. Attempts are essential to maintain the integrity of forests in the place by disallowing industrial plantations. Involvement of farmers in crop guarding will aid lower crop harm and quantum of ex-gratia payment.”
Kishor Rithe, president of Satpuda Basis, a non-governmental organisation (NGO) dealing with conservation, and member of the State Board for Wildlife, cites a late 1990s publication called Jungalchi Wat (The Jungle Trail), which suggests elephants arrived to the Vidarbha area from Odisha 56 years back. Its creator, Dr Anand Maslekar, a Forest Officer from the erstwhile Chandia district (afterwards bifurcated into Chandrapur and Gadchiroli), wrote about his activities in the discipline in the 1960s and about an elephant that brought about disruption. He wrote, “While I was in Chandia, a herd of seven elephants came to Alapally from Orissa [Odisha] throughout Madhya Pradesh (then Chhattisgarh Point out) and crossed Indravati Nagy. They were in a frenzy. He was the chief of the herd. He injured two of our male elephants. Our elephants are at do the job. 1 mahout was hurt. I was ordered to destroy this elephant. But right after a although he dug the ground with the support of his two massive tusks and fell out of the pit. All our elephants had been brought to Alapally. A thorough report was despatched on.” Obviously this ought to have been at a time when groups of educated elephants were being used for forest do the job.
Kishor Rithe, who was lately conferred with the Maharastrachi Girishkhare award for his contribution to forest and wildlife conservation in excess of the past three many years, has a pretty optimistic outlook on the existence of wild elephants in Maharashtra. In accordance to him, “the proposed Sunabeda-Khariyar Tiger Reserve (Odisha), Sitandi-Udanti (Chhattisgarh), Barnavpara-Indravati, Pamed, Kanger Valley in Bastar, Kopela-Kolamarka (Maharashtra), Pranahita (Maharashtra and Telangana), North Bhadrachalam (Telangana)… this whole region is complementary to the two elephants and buffaloes. The governments of Chhattisgarh, Maharashtra and Odisha will have to function together for this.”
Wild buffalo sanctuary
Kishor Rithe had served the Federal government of Maharashtra set up Kolamarka, the 1st wild buffalo sanctuary in Gadchiroli, in 2013. He says, “For this [project], we jointly studied the State of Chhattisgarh adjoining Gadchiroli district, the border location of Telangana and the wildlife habitat of Orissa Point out from 2001 to 2004. The Bombay Natural History Society, Dr Bivash Pandav, Ashish Fernandes, Imran Siddiqui, the then Honorary Wildlife Ranger of Gadchiroli, Mahendra Singh Chavan and Uday Patel were concerned in this prolonged survey function.”
According to Kishor Rithe, the government does not prioritise intense conservation operate in Gadchiroli since of the concern that naxalism will interfere with it. He claims: “Tiger tourism has sprung up in Chandrapur district right now, hundreds of youths have bought employment, but Gadchiroli district has not acquired the option despite the richness of mother nature. Forest officials themselves opposed the development of the wild buffalo sanctuary. The then Main Minister Prithviraj Chavan, without listening to these officers, supported the preservation of Ran buffaloes. Nonetheless, forest officials took a stand indicating, ‘No sanctuaries, conservation reserves.’ [Their reasoning was fear-based] … that the Forest Section would not be capable to operate listed here as there are naxalites in the region. These days, about 22 buffaloes are grazing in the Kolamarka Reserve. This quantity is better than the whole selection in Chhattisgarh. Maharashtra is now known for wild buffalo.”
The two wild buffalo and elephants will need large and constant forest place. In addition, the area should have perennial rivers and big lakes. The former Chandia district, which incorporates today’s Chandrapur and Gadchiroli, is blessed with a lot of lakes. Kishor Rithe states the largest lakes in India are in the district around Tirupati in Andhra Pradesh. After that it is [the erstwhile] Chandia district. Besides, there are perennial rivers this sort of as the Indravati, Godavari, Pranhita, Wainganga and Wardha. Hence, Kishor Rithe thinks, “wild elephants and buffaloes can stay in the blended forest spot of the present Chandrapur and Gadchiroli districts as the habitat of these two animals is the same. The boundaries of just just one or two little sanctuaries are unable to limit these large mammals. Therefore, I recommend forest officers to contemplate the Chandia landscape together with out any confined thing to consider. Tourism with the twin attraction in the variety of elephants and wild buffaloes could supply large work prospects to the youth here.”
Thankfully, there is a content consensus on the upcoming of the elephant herd in Maharashtra, with conservationists, the Forest Division and Condition wildlife officials certain that the elephants can locate a dwelling in the Point out. Even nearby villagers are not unhappy given that the Forest Office has promptly tackled their fears.
Above all, what requires to be remembered is that this herd of 22 large mammals, able of carrying out wonderful hurt, has been travelling for 9 years with no incidents of conflict. Like most wildlife, this herd is plainly searching for a silent residence. As of now Maharashtra has been hospitable to them. Forest officers and wildlifers are of the belief that if the herd does not move on by March, then they are here to continue to be, bringing again the era when wild elephants inhabited Maharashtra.
It has been a lot more than 3 months considering that a herd of wild elephants wandered across the Chhattisgarh border to the forests of Gadchiroli in jap Maharashtra. At first it was imagined that the herd of 22 elephants, which was thought to have arrived on Oct 18, would pass through as other folks had previously. They entered Maharashtra around Kanhargao Tola village, about 25 kilometres from the Chhattisgarh border, trampling some farmland but feeding on nothing at all from around human habitations and attacking no one.
They were being bound for the bordering forests which are thick and blended aged progress, presenting the elephants their favorite young environmentally friendly bamboo shoots and leaves interspersed with patches of grasslands in the forests and the Buchanania lanzan, a deciduous tree that provides seeds that are edible for human beings. Elephants are very captivated to its seeds identified as chironji or charoli. Water far too is freely available since this is the river basin of the Wainganga, Pranhita and Dina rivers. The presence of other wildlife would have reassured the herd of the relative basic safety and ease and comfort of their new environment.
Guarded regions
About 76 for every cent of Gadchiroli is categorized as forest. It is a wildlife-dominated forest landscape with selected Safeguarded Places these types of as the Kolamarka Wild Buffalo Conservation Reserve, the Pranahita Wildlife Sanctuary, the Chaprala Wildlife Sanctuary and the Bhamragadh Wildlife Sanctuary. There is also the Indravati Tiger Reserve in Chhattisgarh, which borders the Kolamarka Reserve in Maharashtra. The confined human presence and the continuous stretches of safeguarded forest parts have encouraged the elephants to discover the space some much more.
The herd arrived listed here soon after an estimated seven to 9 several years of steadily wandering south. Although no experiments have been performed, officials of the Forest Departments of Odisha, Chhattisgarh and Maharashtra have monitored the herd more than the a long time. They say the herd exited Odisha someday in 2013 and then stayed for various intervals in the districts of Kanker, Balod, Gariaband and Dhamtari in Chhattisgarh. They commenced shifting out of Dhamtari in September and entered Maharashtra in Oct.
Shortly following its arrival a calf was born, perhaps offering the herd 1 a lot more cause to settle down for a while. The herd consists of one particular tusker, grownup males and females, two calves that have been with the herd when it crossed more than, and a single calf that was born in December in Maharashtra. A staff of 30 folks from the Forest Office is checking them. While the cause for their wonderful trek is not very clear, it is imagined that the constriction of forested areas, unrestricted development of infrastructure assignments, and mining have pressured the elephants to hold relocating.
Following their entry into Maharashtra, the elephants have been ‘camping’ at different spots. They stayed for months each individual in the Dhanora South and Murumgaon East ranges in north Gadchiroli as effectively as the Wadsa forest division toward west Gadchiroli. All these are heavily forested spots. In the colonial period these were being designated looking blocks where by licences to kill wildlife for ‘sport’ could be acquired. Porla, Holsa, Kanhargaon are all aged hunting blocks—a term, fortunately, no longer in use. In fact, Kanhargaon was recently declared a wildlife sanctuary. It is a welcome declaration mainly because it abuts the Tadoba Tiger Reserve and that’s why extends the protected location for wildlife to wander. The rest, even though not declared as sanctuaries, are component of the much larger reserve forest place. It is in this scenario that the herd is continuing its migration.
Tribal folks compensated
Primarily, the elephants are wandering in and out of the reserve forest, chancing on paddy fields and hamlets and then disappearing again into the safety of forests. Their movements appear to suggest a choice to prevent human habitation. The area populace are mainly tribals, but officers say despite their link with the forests they are apprehensive about the elephants. However, the Forest Department’s attempts have reassured the individuals. When villagers see signals of the herd in their vicinity, they get their possess precautions. They pick to sleep on the terraces of residences instead of mud huts. In appreciation, the Forest Department has been distributing blankets in the villages. Even though the elephants are not feeding on crops in the fields there is some damage as they pass by means of. To additional retain the peace, the Forest Department has been shelling out farmers payment for crops misplaced through the herd’s migration.
In mid-December the herd entered the Brahmapuri forest division in adjoining Chandrapur district. Brahmapuri is throughout the Wainganga river that separates the two districts. This forest division is a tiger-dominated landscape and as this sort of the Forest Office has to usually grapple with very low-degree person-animal conflict circumstances.
The entry of a substantial herd of elephants was a issue of concern for the Forest Section. Standing crops ended up broken when the herd crossed around at evening. Indignant villagers collected, apparently with no strategy, but the Forest Office continue to known as in for police help and dispersed the crowd. By early morning the elephants experienced retraced their steps possibly because of the antagonism but additional likely for the reason that of the paucity of food items.
Brahmapuri’s forest is patchier than Gadchiroli’s and the favorite green bamboo of elephants does not mature as luxuriantly as it does in Gadchiroli. Their food choices suggest that they could migrate to the Tadoba-Andhari Tiger Reserve, which has thick bamboo forests. But to get there they will have to face human-dominated landscapes, which may possibly discourage them. Foods aside, remaining in Gadchiroli may have its negatives for the elephants, specifically in the tendu leaf gathering period when tribal communities spend extensive hrs in the forest collecting the leaves for their earnings.
There seems to be some confusion about whether elephants are endemic to this area of Maharashtra. The Forest Division states there have been no new sightings in the area, apart from a couple of many years back when elephants ended up found near the Chhattisgarh border but did not cross in excess of.
Wild elephants in Maharashtra
The Forest Section has no document of when wild elephants had been previous sighted in Gadchiroli. Elephants ended up employed as soon as in a Forest Department camp in southern Gadchiroli to transfer logs of wooden. According to the summary of a January 2013 exploration paper titled ‘Past, Existing and Long term of Wild Elephants in Maharashtra, India’, authored by Prachi Mehta and Jayant Kulkarni of the Wildlife Analysis and Conservation Culture, “From 2002 onwards, wild elephants commenced extending their selection into Maharashtra Point out from the adjoining Point out of Karnataka. At current, three teams comprising a whole of 11 elephants have turn into resident in Kolhapur and Sindhudurg districts of Maharashtra. The intensity of crop hurt is large simply because the elephants are feeding on plantation crops that are readily available through the yr. From 2002 to 2013, Maharashtra recorded 10,200 crop hurt instances by elephants, 13 elephant deaths and 10 human deaths, and paid out Rs.90,248 million ($1,641 million) as crop payment to farmers. Attempts are essential to maintain the integrity of forests in the place by disallowing industrial plantations. Involvement of farmers in crop guarding will aid lower crop harm and quantum of ex-gratia payment.”
Kishor Rithe, president of Satpuda Basis, a non-governmental organisation (NGO) dealing with conservation, and member of the State Board for Wildlife, cites a late 1990s publication called Jungalchi Wat (The Jungle Trail), which suggests elephants arrived to the Vidarbha area from Odisha 56 years back. Its creator, Dr Anand Maslekar, a Forest Officer from the erstwhile Chandia district (afterwards bifurcated into Chandrapur and Gadchiroli), wrote about his activities in the discipline in the 1960s and about an elephant that brought about disruption. He wrote, “While I was in Chandia, a herd of seven elephants came to Alapally from Orissa [Odisha] throughout Madhya Pradesh (then Chhattisgarh Point out) and crossed Indravati Nagy. They were in a frenzy. He was the chief of the herd. He injured two of our male elephants. Our elephants are at do the job. 1 mahout was hurt. I was ordered to destroy this elephant. But right after a although he dug the ground with the support of his two massive tusks and fell out of the pit. All our elephants had been brought to Alapally. A thorough report was despatched on.” Obviously this ought to have been at a time when groups of educated elephants were being used for forest do the job.
Kishor Rithe, who was lately conferred with the Maharastrachi Girishkhare award for his contribution to forest and wildlife conservation in excess of the past three many years, has a pretty optimistic outlook on the existence of wild elephants in Maharashtra. In accordance to him, “the proposed Sunabeda-Khariyar Tiger Reserve (Odisha), Sitandi-Udanti (Chhattisgarh), Barnavpara-Indravati, Pamed, Kanger Valley in Bastar, Kopela-Kolamarka (Maharashtra), Pranahita (Maharashtra and Telangana), North Bhadrachalam (Telangana)… this whole region is complementary to the two elephants and buffaloes. The governments of Chhattisgarh, Maharashtra and Odisha will have to function together for this.”
Wild buffalo sanctuary
Kishor Rithe had served the Federal government of Maharashtra set up Kolamarka, the 1st wild buffalo sanctuary in Gadchiroli, in 2013. He says, “For this [project], we jointly studied the State of Chhattisgarh adjoining Gadchiroli district, the border location of Telangana and the wildlife habitat of Orissa Point out from 2001 to 2004. The Bombay Natural History Society, Dr Bivash Pandav, Ashish Fernandes, Imran Siddiqui, the then Honorary Wildlife Ranger of Gadchiroli, Mahendra Singh Chavan and Uday Patel were concerned in this prolonged survey function.”
According to Kishor Rithe, the government does not prioritise intense conservation operate in Gadchiroli since of the concern that naxalism will interfere with it. He claims: “Tiger tourism has sprung up in Chandrapur district right now, hundreds of youths have bought employment, but Gadchiroli district has not acquired the option despite the richness of mother nature. Forest officials themselves opposed the development of the wild buffalo sanctuary. The then Main Minister Prithviraj Chavan, without listening to these officers, supported the preservation of Ran buffaloes. Nonetheless, forest officials took a stand indicating, ‘No sanctuaries, conservation reserves.’ [Their reasoning was fear-based] … that the Forest Section would not be capable to operate listed here as there are naxalites in the region. These days, about 22 buffaloes are grazing in the Kolamarka Reserve. This quantity is better than the whole selection in Chhattisgarh. Maharashtra is now known for wild buffalo.”
The two wild buffalo and elephants will need large and constant forest place. In addition, the area should have perennial rivers and big lakes. The former Chandia district, which incorporates today’s Chandrapur and Gadchiroli, is blessed with a lot of lakes. Kishor Rithe states the largest lakes in India are in the district around Tirupati in Andhra Pradesh. After that it is [the erstwhile] Chandia district. Besides, there are perennial rivers this sort of as the Indravati, Godavari, Pranhita, Wainganga and Wardha. Hence, Kishor Rithe thinks, “wild elephants and buffaloes can stay in the blended forest spot of the present Chandrapur and Gadchiroli districts as the habitat of these two animals is the same. The boundaries of just just one or two little sanctuaries are unable to limit these large mammals. Therefore, I recommend forest officers to contemplate the Chandia landscape together with out any confined thing to consider. Tourism with the twin attraction in the variety of elephants and wild buffaloes could supply large work prospects to the youth here.”
Thankfully, there is a content consensus on the upcoming of the elephant herd in Maharashtra, with conservationists, the Forest Division and Condition wildlife officials certain that the elephants can locate a dwelling in the Point out. Even nearby villagers are not unhappy given that the Forest Office has promptly tackled their fears.
Above all, what requires to be remembered is that this herd of 22 large mammals, able of carrying out wonderful hurt, has been travelling for 9 years with no incidents of conflict. Like most wildlife, this herd is plainly searching for a silent residence. As of now Maharashtra has been hospitable to them. Forest officers and wildlifers are of the belief that if the herd does not move on by March, then they are here to continue to be, bringing again the era when wild elephants inhabited Maharashtra.
