Food bombs, poison, steel-jaw traps: India’s farmer-wildlife war
- Outrage over the death of a pregnant elephant has shone a spotlight on the violent methods used to protect crops
- Some 338 elephants died of electrocution in 13 states between 2007 and 2014
Besides using food laced with country bombs, farmers living near the forests use live-wire fences, iron leg-hold traps, steel-jaw traps, poisons and snares to ward off tigers, elephants, wild boars, nilgais, deers, peacocks and monkeys to save their crops.
On Wednesday, 12 men in the southern state of Tamil Nadu were arrested for killing a jackal by packing explosives in meat that blew up its mouth when it took a bite. Last week, a man in the northern state of Himachal Pradesh was arrested for feeding a pregnant cow an explosive-laden wheat-flour ball that blew its jaw off.
“Tigers and leopards have lost lives accidentally due to electrocution from live fences which were put up to protect farms from crop raiding species, especially in the central states of Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh,” said Mayukh Chatterjee, who heads the WTI’s human-wildlife conflict mitigation department.
In this man-animal conflict, there are cases in which animals have died after inadvertently eating food wrapped in country bombs meant for wilder species.
One person has been arrested over the death of the elephant last month, a case which caused an outpouring of grief including from Bollywood stars. The post mortem report found the elephant died after water entered her lungs when she immersed in a river to soothe her wounds.
