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Elephants wreak havoc in Jalpaiguri

     Jalpaiguri: A herd of wild elephants wreaked havoc in a village in Jalpaiguri district of West Bengal. Around 50 elephants had strayed into the Diana forest region of the district from Assam and caused damage to the crops and the houses in the Angrabasha GP-1 and 2 region of Jalpaiguri. Fed up with the plundering elephants, the villagers took it upon themselves to chase the animals back towards the forest. "The animals plundered the whole area. They have damaged the crops and our houses as well," said Ramesh Chettri, a villager. Experts claim that massive deforestation, poaching and people encroaching upon forest corridors have forced elephants to move out of their natural habitats in search of food and water. Home to 60 per cent of Asia's elephants, India has the highest death rate from human-elephant conflict in the world, with 200-250 people and 100 elephants killed annually. Habitat fragmentation, poaching of tusked males, and patchy forest law enforcement caused the decline in elephant population, but their numbers have slowly been increasing in the recent past.
-August 28, 2009

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