Jalpaiguri: Electric fencing along the banks of Mechi river in Bahundangi village of Nepal has led to multiple elephant deaths in the Naxalbari-Kharibari belt that borders the Himalayan kingdom.
According to figures available with the Bengal forest department, at least 10 elephants have been electrocuted in the past 15 years, of which two deaths took place in the past month. Another elephant calf was rescued and sent to Gorumara National Park for rehabilitation.
The Nepal government set up electric fences along the banks of Mechi to stop elephants from entering villages on their side. In 2008, a security personnel in Nepal had opened indiscriminate fire on an elephant that led to its death. The fences were installed thereafter. However, this has disrupted the traditional jumbo corridor from Mechi in Nepal to Sankosh In Assam.
This has left Indian forest officials worried as the elephants, unable to use the corridor, are entering villages along the border and causing destruction. “Depredations by elephants have increased in the Naxalbari-Kharibari areas,” said Animesh Basu, a state wildlife advisory board member.
Forest minister Jyotipriya Mallick, who was in Jalpaiguri to hold a departmental meeting on Saturday, said that he has asked the chief secretary to take up the issue with concerned officials.
Mallick further said that the department was eager to restore five elephant corridors in the Dooars. “These corridors pass through tea gardens. We will talk to the garden lessees to restore the corridors,” he said.
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