A herd of elephants in a human-dominated area often attracts crowds for reasons ranging from angst to curiosity. Some people are anxious about the presence of a potentially dangerous animal in their backyard; others gather to make and post videos on social media. Elephants acutely feel the pressure of navigating through human-dominated landscapes and are often left frightened by the bustling crowds dangerously close to them.
In such situations, forest departments face the challenge of ensuring the safety of both people and animals. Many states such as Karnataka have dedicated teams like the Elephant Task Force, a community-based unit, to assist the forest department in conflict management. The ETF, headed by a district-level officer, comprises smaller field units led by permanent forest department staff of the rank of range forest officer. All key decisions are taken by the officers in-charge and the tasks are delegated to the ETF members under their supervision to manage a conflict situation.
The ETF’s primary responsibility, unlike the hula party, is not to drive elephants but to track them and ensure that the communities living around them remain safe and are informed about the presence of elephants. Several precautionary measures or standard operating procedures have been put in place. The SOPs include cordoning off a certain area where the elephants are found; relying on police support to manage crowds including, if necessary, the imposition of Section 144 through the district administration; and informing people in advance through press notifications and public announcements.
The ETF also receives adequate training on a regular basis so that it is equipped with the correct knowledge to assess a conflict situation and take appropriate action. A potential conflict situation between people and elephants can be effectively managed through better crowd control with minimal interventions, thereby avoiding unnecessary and unplanned drives, unlike the one witnessed in Jhargram in August wherein a female elephant was killed with a burning spear thrown by the hula party. West Bengal, like most other states, does not have a clear policy on dealing with human-elephant conflict. Attention is disproportionately directed at addressing the symptoms rather than the root cause of the issue, such as an overt reliance on physical barriers like electric fences. These measures can be short-sighted as they do not address factors like habitat fragmentation and degradation. For these reasons, investing in the training of specialised rapid response teams, instead of outsourcing conflict management to locals through hula parties, and focusing on conserving elephant corridors are the need of the hour.
While communities grapple with the loss of livelihoods and compromised safety from co-habiting with elephants, the frontline staff of the forest department are under pressure to keep elephants away from human habitation. This can produce tragic outcomes. Unplanned drive operations have claimed the lives of several people and frontline staff of forest departments; elephants, too, have been injured or killed. According to data from the ministry of environment, forest, and climate change, 921 elephant deaths were recorded in West Bengal between 2014 and 2024, making it the highest in the country under the category of ‘non-natural deaths’, which indicates all fatalities resulting from anthropogenic factors.
While tensions are high in areas experiencing human-elephant conflict, reduced tolerance towards elephants in those communities is predictable. However, the use of illegal practices to manage conflict situations does more harm than good to elephants and to the people sharing space with them.
In the age of such uneasy cohabitation between people and elephants, is it not fair that the elephant should get the right of way?
Vinod Krishnan is a wildlife conservationist working at HSI/ India. Shubhra Sotie is an environmental lawyer and a wildlife policy and research specialist at HSI/India
