A herd of rampaging elephants that earlier returned to their origin in Chhattisgarh state are now back to Anuppur districts of Madhya Pradesh.

These elephants have formed temporary territory near Jaithari area where villagers have been asked to be alert. Besides, another group of 12 elephants have become active around Bandhavgarh under Umaria district.

Problem of elephant rampaging is continued around Umaria, Kanha, Shahdol, Anuppur villages for past three years. In March, a group of 11 elephants formed territory around Shahdol villages. These elephants damaged the crops, houses and also killed many people in villages. They are very moody and violent elephant.

Forest team is demanding special package from centre to introduce elephant management plan. When these elephant group move towards residential village, forest team run with sugarcane, banana and other delicious food for them to divert their route. They are making all efforts to divert the elephants towards forest areas. There is also proposal of radio collaring of elephants. Forest officials have also proposed to use drone camera around villagers to keep an eye on movement of elephant’s group.

Officials said that mostly group of jumbos prefer to rest during day hours in jungle and after sunset they move towards villages. An expert committee formed to find out solution of rampaging elephants recommended radio collaring. Currently, there are 65 elephants active around Umaria and Sidhi. These elephants become violent after facing any hurdles. They have killed 11 people in different areas so far. Besides, a herd of 9 elephants has formed territory around Shahdol. These elephants have entered Madhya Pradesh from neighbouring state Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Odisha, etc. Elephant experts from several corners of country gathered at Bandhavgarh Tiger Reserve (BTR) during December 2021 where they suggested forest team to include all these strategies to have control over rampaging elephants. Experts also suggested electric fencing in areas that are highly affected with elephant riot. These electric fencing would be operated with solar power. This fencing would have electric current to distract the animals. At present there are four herds of elephants and around 12 to 15 jumbos are there in each group. Experts shave also suggested shortening the group of elephants. Experts said that small group of elephant is easy to handle. They told forest officials to shorten the group of elephants with help of crackers, drum beats and running tractor without silencer. These tricks will be distributing elephants in several groups. Experts also suggested that there should be sufficient food and water inside the jungle so that they do not move out in residential areas.