-- Samir Umarye KERI: Elephants have resurfaced in the valley of Tillari in Maharashtra, giving the villagers there, and those in Bicholim and Bardez areas, sleepless nights.
Villagers living in the vicinity of the Tillari reservoir are living in fear, particularly because of a male tusker who has begun destroying paddy fields and horticultural crops. On earlier occasions, when the elephants were forced to retreat from the Tillari region, they had ventured into Bicholim and Bardez areas and caused hurt to human lives and damage to property. Since 2001, villagers in the valleys of Tillari and Mangao have been facing problems repeatedly from herds of elephants coming in from Karnataka's forests. Many elephants, and humans have lost their lives in man-elephant conflicts. Wildlife activists and environmentalists from Goa and Maharashtra have often requested the Maharashtra government to create an elephant reserve in the Tillari reservoir area. But instead of undertaking long-term measures to solve the issue, a decade ago, Maharashtra launched an "elephants go back" campaign to send the animals back to Karnataka with the help of drum-beating locals and trained elephants, but this proved to be only a short-term measure. Recently, three elephants responsible for attacking villagers and destroying crops in Kudal region of Sindhudurg district were caught with the help of trained elephants from Karnataka, but died shortly after. Vithal Shelke, a wildlife enthusiast from Dodamarg taluka, said, "A lot of misunderstandings while tackling the elephant menace have resulted in making the problem even more complex. There is a need to educate villagers to deal with the problem scientifically and systematically."(toi)
