The ratio stood at 10:24 last year. It was 10 humans and 24 elephants, who had lost their lives as an outcome of the man - animal conflict in Coimbatore District. The numbers had a fifty per cent rise in comparison with the previous year.
The number of elephants and humans died that year including the much popularized Madukkarai Maharaj alias Kattayan were the highest in many years and it were also seen as an alarming outcome of the Man-animal conflict.
Unfortunately, the alarm was not heard loud and clear and Coimbatore continued to remain a battle field losing humans and animals in regular intervals. And Madukkarai range, one of the most of controversial and conflict-stricken ranges in the Coimbatore Division of the Tamil Nadu Forest Department continued to see man and animal at logger heads.
Elephants intruding into populated areas has become a routine in the range and almost all the months see elephants visiting farms, houses, streets and not very far, cities. This is not new and has been happening for a few years, and with the haunting story of Maharaj hovering around the range, it was high time already for Forest Department personnel to manage the ‘elephant problem’ effectively.
However, the elephant problem, which is the outcome of human activities, has been let loose without effective management. The outcome of the problem had a more than haunting turn when a less than 15-year-old male elephant emerged from the range and went on a killing spree for more than 10 kilo meters outside the reserve.
N. Shiva Kumar, one of the residents of Ganeshapuram, where the elephant killed a 13-year-old girl named V. Gayathri asked how the elephant navigated to such populated area from the forest.
The answer to the question lies in a complicated system of driving the elephant away into the jungle. The elephant had earlier injured two APWs after moving out through Arivoli Nagar and entering B.K. Pudhur, which according to locals was not a prime visiting point.
It had reportedly walked on from the Kovaipudhur to Madukkarai Road and crossed the Palakkad High Way close to the Kovai Pudhur Pirivu junction. An army of 500 people were on its tail around 10.00 pm as the confused creature moved about and created utter circus.
However, officials managed to let the animal cross back into the reserve, but the temperament of the animal was tampered with by the mob that had chased the animal with stones, lights and disturbing noise. According to experts, when an elephant is taunted constantly, it might become agile towards humans and what happened the other day was an example of the theory.
The elephant had now used the Military Camp route to cross, using a canal on the Palakkad Highway and had navigated through populated areas. The rest of the story was neither pleasing to the eyes nor soft to the hearts as lives left the earth in the most gruesome ways at the tusks and trunks of the confused elephant.
Though lives were compensated with money, conflict still remains. The feeling that if the money had been earlier poured into mitigation measures, lives would not have been lost prevails strongly among people.
Some of the locals also claim that a traditional path near Manjupallam used by elephants had been blocked with a temporary trench making, which had led to the animal move into new areas. However, the department officials are very much against the animals using it as it leads to human habited areas.
Yet, the idea did not help in keeping the animal within the reserve and lack of route knowledge of forest department led to the death poor lives. If this issue does not ring an alarm in the ears of politicians who must take necessary steps to curb conflict, the war would never end unless one loses. Coexistence is possible if conflict is mitigated. Mitigation is not possible in war.