The park has started monitoring, and has written to the department to install radio collars.
What you should know
One is a tuskless elephant (Makuna). The other is a tusked elephant without a tail. Both of these elephants often walk together and separately from the group. Being separated from the group, they are more angry and unruly. Both elephants are often found in the forest near settlements. They enter settlements before dusk. They have been engaged in activities ranging from destroying houses to damaging farms.
It is the second of the two elephants to kill a woman in Bhimdatta Municipality-14, Bankatti on Tuesday night. The elephant attacked 45-year-old Dhana Bista as soon as she went out to look after the kitchen attached to the thatched house. Locals say that it then carried her to a nearby pile of straw and left her only after she died.
‘The tusked and tailless elephants are very restless, we have started monitoring them,’ said Purushottam Wagle, conservation officer of Shuklaphanta National Park. ‘We are monitoring where these two elephants go both during the day and at night.’ He said that elephants separated from the group become aggressive and pose a risk to settlements.
Elephants are wild animals that usually move in groups. Everyone in the group, from the elderly to adults and cubs, is together. Since everyone in the group has to be protected, they do not appear to be very aggressive. ‘Elephants in the group move more along their biological path, if there is any obstacle, they remove it, but they do not show much aggression when entering the settlement,’ Wagle said. ‘Those who are separated or separated from the group are more aggressive, they enter the settlement and cause trouble.’ They are separated as a disciplinary measure when they are undisciplined in the group.’ According to Wagle, both the Makuna and Matta elephants have separated from the group. The park has now formed various teams to monitor them. He said that a letter has been written to the National Parks and Wildlife Conservation Department to install radio collars and monitor them. Until permission is received from the department, monitoring will be carried out by technicians. If permission is received from the department, monitoring will be carried out by installing radio collars.
These two elephants are now also seen near the settlement in the park. They have occasionally entered the settlement. That is why conservationists say that food should not be kept in the bedroom and that people should not go out at night. Since elephants come to eat food, staying with food is more risky.
It is estimated that there are more than 40 native elephants in Shuklaphanta National Park. However, no monitoring and counting of elephants has been done so far. A large number of wild elephants also come from Dudhwa National Park in India according to the season. At that time, herds of elephants have entered the settlement and created havoc. Incidents of destroying houses and even killing people have been happening every year, damaging crops including rice, wheat and sugarcane.
Recently, activities ranging from installing electric fences to digging trenches to deter wildlife have been taking place on the park's shores. But this has not been able to work sustainably, leaving the residents of the park worried.
