In a bid to avoid human-human conflict, the West Bengal Forest department has decided to tag wild elephants with radio-collars.
The proposal was mooted after chief minister Mamata Banerjee directed the forest department to take steps to prevent elephants from straying into human habitations.
Mamata, while addressing in Sagar Island on Monday, expressed her concern over the issue of elephants in Bengal.
In 2024, 13 persons were killed and crops of a few hundred acres destroyed after elephants strayed into the villages located near forests across Bengal. In 2023, a total of 24 persons were trampled by wild elephants.
“After the chief minister instructed the forest department to take steps to avoid human-elephant conflicts, a detailed plan has been chalked out. The detailed plan will be sent to the state secretariat next week,” said an officer of the state forest department.
According to forest department sources, Bengal has more than 800 elephants at present.
“The elephants move around in herds of 10-12, our primary plan is to radio-collar at least one elephant in a herd. For this, we will require 75 to 80 radio-collars. Indigenous radio-collars come for ₹1.5 lakh to ₹2 lakh each,” said the officer.
Elaborating on how the radio-collars will meet the goal, avoiding human-elephant conflict, another forest department officer said, “Once the elephants are tagged with the gadget, we will be able to track the herd of elephants throughout the year. If we detect any herd nearing a human habitation, foresters can alert villagers and steer elephants back to the forest.”
The officer also said the chief minister might have adopted the idea of tagging elephants with radio-collar from the recent successful venture of capturing tigress Zeenat. “The big cat strayed from Odisha’s Simplipal forest and entered Bengal covering more than 200 km. We could track Zeenat’s location because it was also tagged with a radio collar,” he added.
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