Guwahati enjoys a status that few Indian cities can boast of. It has one of the world’s highest concentrations of urban wildlife. Sadly, little or nothing has been done to preserve the wildlife in and around the city. Conservationists warn that doomsday for the city’s wildlife is only 10 years away, with the decade-old Guwahati Wildlife Division doing little to remedy the situation. Encroachment of forestland and unchecked spread of human habitation are pushing Guwahati’s 11 wildlife reserves to the brink.
It is a battle between two ‘beasts’ and, ironically, the odds are overwhelming against the one endowed with grace and grandeur: the elephant. More than 4,000 sqkm of reserve forest area in Assam is encroached upon. That leaves elephants little choice but to stray into human settlements.
The other big worry for elephants is the railways. Since 1987, more than 150 elephants have been killed in rail accidents across the country, many of them in Assam.
Most of these deaths have occurred near prime habitats, where the animals have been hit by trains at night or during poor visibility. Chances of survival are negligible when an elephant is hit by a passenger or goods train running at a wicked speed. Even a train travelling at 40kmph can kill a full-grown elephant within minutes.
In the last six years, Assam has lost more than 40 elephants to poisoning, electrocution, train accidents and bullet injuries. This gruesome man-animal conflict is only likely to worsen unless drastic measures are taken by the state authorities.
Ritu Raj Konwar