Saving humans, wild jumbos and crops

One of the frequent complaints heard by the President on election campaign tour is the problem of wild elephants storming villages. Lives, property and crops are lost due to elephant attacks, mostly at night.

Modern Sri Lanka has an increasing human population and decreasing elephant population. Dwindling foraging areas for the elephant and increasing farmlands have aggravated the situation. Elephants cannot be considered a nuisance. They must be protected.

Fire and noise (by of crackers and gunfire) have been tried with decreasing efficiency over the years to scare wild elephants away. Electric fences around villages are expensive and need maintenance. Elephants are also learning how to destroy them. More expensive methods have been proposed such as electronic surveillance. These are too expensive. The villagers also do not have the knowledge and equipment to monitor the wild elephants. Even if they advance information they will still need effective ways to chase them away.

A recent attempt to grow citrus trees as a border between the jungle and the farm lands has yielded the desired results. One need to wait a couple of years for the benefits. We need short-term and long-term solutions.

Africans have found that wild elephants fear bee stings in the trunk and eyes and avoid bee hives specially when disturbed. Entomologists have confirmed that bee stings in the trunk cause breathing difficulties to elephants.

Professor John Paulson, a tropical ecologist from Duke university in the US, has conducted research in Africa and Lucy King, a research scientist from Oxford university, has done so in Nepal, Thailand and Sri Lanka. It is a pity this has not been adopted in our country.

The Africans have recorded noise from disturbed bee hives and play them when elephants come close. There is an excellent video by Raf Schwartz demonstrating how elephants panic when they hear noise made by disturbed bees titled ‘African farmers are building sustainable bee hive fences to protect their crops from wild elephants’. This is available in the Youtube.

Cheap record and play with amplification devices are readily available in Sri Lanka. A trial of this method should be held urgently. However, unless stung at least once or twice, elephants soon learn to ignore sound alone. In the long run, farming bees along the border of jungles, similar to African fences with bee hives, interspersed with fake hives should be established as a deterrent for elephants as well as an economically profitable venture. Farmers would willingly maintain the fence that provides them with an additional income. Over to you Sawbhagye Dakma authorities.

Upali Abeysiri