Bhopal (Madhya Pradesh): A herd of around 25 elephants is moving in Beohari area of Shahdol, creating panic among villagers and leaving forest officers on toes. From the last fifteen days, the elephant herd is moving in Beohari and nearby areas. It is learnt that the herd came from Chhattisgarh. It had first gone to Sanjay Tiger Reserve and later on moved towards Shahdol.
Interacting to Free Press, District Forest Officer of Shahdol, Shraddha Pendre confirmed the presence of around 25 elephants in Beohari area. She added that forest team remains deployed for entire night to see the movement of elephants and protect villagers. During day time, elephants remain inside jungles and at night, move towards fields situated near villages. The ‘Munadi’ is done to aware villagers that they shall not go near the elephants as this act may irk jumbos.
‘Currently, I am in Karnataka to undergo a week-long training over how to control the elephants. The trainers said that elephants shall not be disturbed or forced to beat the retreat. By doing so, they might become angry. They will move ahead automatically when they will not find food for themselves,’ she said. Notably, after Bandhavgarh incident, wherein eleven elephants died after feeding on spoiled Kudo, government sent a team of selected forest officials to learn the tactics of how to contain human-elephant conflict and control elephant herds.
Another forest officer of Shahdol division told Free Press that day and night monitoring of elephants is being done. Elephant herds have damaged some harvested crops and even destroyed a desolated hut. The harvested paddy is lying in the fields and elephants get attracted towards it. So far, there is no human-elephant conflict.
From Sanjay Tiger Reserve to Shahdol…
It was learnt that before Diwali, the concerned herd of elephants came from Chhattisgarh and entered Sanjay Tiger Reserve. After staying there for some days, the herd moved towards Shahdol division.
