Elephants in Lockdown

#elephants #lockdown #conservation

During lockdown in 2020, interactions between elephants and humans in West Bengal escalated badly. Elephant numbers are increasing in the region, however, the reserve they live in isn't. This means elephants are steadily coming into more contact with surrounding trains, villages and roads, resulting in collisions or electrocution. Added to which, local people suffer from herds eating crops from their fields and live in fear of physical danger when elephants enter villages. Lockdown sadly only exacerbated this problem.

Fortunately, thanks to your donations, PTES grantee and project leader Samya Basu, is already working on an emergency initiative to put an end to preventable elephant deaths. He and his team are creating an elephant-friendly village featuring modern alarm systems, crop rotation and underground granaries. He is training elephant trackers from local villages to divert the herds towards low-risk zones to reduce accidental deaths and retaliatory killings too.

Samya has recorded this video to say thank you for the generous donations from PTES supporters. He's joined by Mr Chakraborty from Godapiashal village, in West Bengal. When the elephants migrate they walk right through his village, so Mr Chakraborty has experienced the issues firsthand. He's also a priest at the ‘Hati Mela’ elephant fair, where more than 5,000 people gather to worship elephant idols each February. Mr Chakraborty was born in Godapiashal and has witnessed many changes to the forest and wildlife diversity during his life. He says his village is experiencing severe damage to crops and houses by the elephant herds, and that he loses a lot of money because of this. He thanks Samya Basu and his team for supporting the villagers by helping protect crops, demonstrating new methods and encouraging human-elephant coexistence. He also thanks PTES, and you for your kind help.

If you'd like to donate: https://ptes.org/elephant-appeal/

Thank you.