Human Animal Conflicts
HUMAN WILDLIFE CONFLICTS
The relationship between man and wildlife, historically and prehistorically has been often antagonistic. People have hunted wild animals for food all over the world. Animals have attacked agricultural crops and livestock since the beginning of agriculture and settled lifestyle about 10,000 years ago. Many wild animals are potential competitors to humans for food resources or threats to human life. Wild animals that directly compete with humans for resources such as food or water quickly become ‘problem animals’ are included in the "man-animal conflict" category. Large mammals come into human conflict by destroying livestocks , property, crops and by killing people. According to NGO WPSI the man animal conflict has lead to nearly 20 elephant getting killed between Jan 2007 and Jan 2008 in elephant corridor connecting Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil nadu. In Nov- Dec 2007 at least five elephant deaths were reported from Waynad plateau region in Kerala and from Bandipur forest reserve along Karnataka Tamil nadu border.
Crop and livestock depredation: - A variety of mammals like elephant, rhino, deer, wild pig and monkeys cause immense damage to crops. Damage caused by wild pig is the most prominent one as they have a wide distribution. On a localized scale elephant damage is considerable. All cereals and millets are mostly damaged by elephants along with sugar cane, banana, mango, jackfruit etc. Besides this elephants also cause damage to human life and property. Carnivores such as leopard, tiger, and wild dog prey upon domestic livestock either by entering the settlements in the vicinity of their habitats or when these come into forest for grazing. The buffalos kept by Maldharis in the vicinity of Gir sanctuary form a substantial portion of food of the lions (Chellam, R). Domestic livestock form 30% of the tiger kills near the Chitwan national park in Nepal (Mishra, 1982).
Manslaughter: - There has been an increasing trend in
The relationship between man and wildlife, historically and prehistorically has been often antagonistic. People have hunted wild animals for food all over the world. Animals have attacked agricultural crops and livestock since the beginning of agriculture and settled lifestyle about 10,000 years ago. Many wild animals are potential competitors to humans for food resources or threats to human life. Wild animals that directly compete with humans for resources such as food or water quickly become ‘problem animals’ are included in the "man-animal conflict" category. Large mammals come into human conflict by destroying livestocks , property, crops and by killing people. According to NGO WPSI the man animal conflict has lead to nearly 20 elephant getting killed between Jan 2007 and Jan 2008 in elephant corridor connecting Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil nadu. In Nov- Dec 2007 at least five elephant deaths were reported from Waynad plateau region in Kerala and from Bandipur forest reserve along Karnataka Tamil nadu border.
Crop and livestock depredation: - A variety of mammals like elephant, rhino, deer, wild pig and monkeys cause immense damage to crops. Damage caused by wild pig is the most prominent one as they have a wide distribution. On a localized scale elephant damage is considerable. All cereals and millets are mostly damaged by elephants along with sugar cane, banana, mango, jackfruit etc. Besides this elephants also cause damage to human life and property. Carnivores such as leopard, tiger, and wild dog prey upon domestic livestock either by entering the settlements in the vicinity of their habitats or when these come into forest for grazing. The buffalos kept by Maldharis in the vicinity of Gir sanctuary form a substantial portion of food of the lions (Chellam, R). Domestic livestock form 30% of the tiger kills near the Chitwan national park in Nepal (Mishra, 1982).
Manslaughter: - There has been an increasing trend in
References: Choudary, D.K. 1980. An interim report on status and distribution of elephants in north east India. (Eds) J.C.Daniel, The status of Asian elephants in Indian subcontinent, IUCN report, BNHS. 43-58pp. Hendrichs, H., 1975. Status of tiger Panthera tigris in the sundarban mangrove forest. Saugetieri kundliche mitteilunger. 23:161-199. Prased, S.N., Gadgil, M. 1981. Conservation of Bamboo resources of Karnataka. Karnataka state council for science and technology. 40-60pp. Sukumar, R. 1990. Ecology of asian elephants in southern India. Feeding habits and crop raiding patterns. J.Trop.Ecol. 6:33-53.