We all witnessed the elephant attack in Mysore city three days ago. The TV reporters and the forest officials screamed that wild elephants had entered the city, but the people who were around the elephants chasing it and chiding them seemed “wilder” than the wild elephants.

With urbanisation, man - animal conflict is bound to increase. In this conflict, the animals will lose; after all man is the smarter creature though unfortunately, his behaviour with nature does not reflect it.

Last year, a leopard strayed onto Chamundi Hill Main Road and what a horrific experience it was for the animal. There were cameramen trying to get a close up, there were local residents who were beating utensils to scare it off, there were forest officials trying to shoot it and as usual missing their mark, there were children trying to throw a tennis ball at it, there were cars honking to scare it away... It was sheer chaos. Wherever the leopard entered to try and escape, there were people.

Wild animals shy away from human confrontation. That is why they don’t attack unless they feel threatened. The leopard that can kill a full - grown ox and drag its body up the hill can bring down a couple of humans with a single swipe of its clawed paws but it doesn’t, instead it tries to escape. It wants to be left alone. But we people never give the animal a chance to calm down and in turn make life for our already petrified officials harder.

As far as leopards are concerned, in Mysore the areas around Chamundi Hill will continue to be the scene of man - leopard conflict. And with the peripheral area of Mysore too growing, more such conflicts will ensue. But are our officials prepared to handle such man - animal conflicts? Will a mere task force be enough? What is the use of having a gun and not knowing how to use it? What is the use of a tranquilizer when you don’t know how to calculate an animal’s approximate weight visually and use the appropriate dosage? Because every time you shoot a dart, you aggravate the animal, which is a risk and also the more you shoot, the more are the chances of hurting the public or killing the animal by overdose.

No dart, so what?
Speaking of dart, in the late eighties in Mysore there was chimpanzee trouble. It so happened that a rather large Chimpanzee named Max escaped from Mysore Zoo and first made the Sports Club its home. As the Zoo workers chased him, he went to Siddhartha Nagar and soon moved into a house in the same area. Luckily for the Zoo officials, back then Siddhartha Nagar was not completely built and the house the chimpanzee chose, unfortunately for him, was a stand - alone house — it had no other houses around.

So, the then Zoo Director C. D. Krishne Gowda took three elephants to the house — Ganesha (who died in 2000), Padmavathi (his mate) and Laxmi, their daughter. The three elephants surrounded the stand-alone house and since it was dark, the elephants kept guard and did not allow the chimpanzee to escape all night. In the meanwhile, since there were no tranquilizers available to the Zoo officials back then, the Zoo workers threw the chimpanzee some water and food laced heavily with India’s favourite “holi drink” — Bhaang. After a while, the chimpanzee got high and dry… it got drowsy and the Zoo officials could move it into a cage. Max, of course, lived for a long time after that heady night. He also fathered a son Vali who now lives in Mysore Zoo.

Thanks to Pramoda Devi:
Elephants from the Zoo have been used many times for rescue and other operations in and around Mysore. So, we ask why didn’t the Zoo that has 11 elephants bring any of them to handle the baby elephants that entered the city? The elephants would have controlled them while the Police could have cleared the area of humans who hindered the operations.

Even after the elephants were cornered, it was Princess Pramoda Devi Wadiyar who gave permission and sent three of her five elephants to help rescue and move the baby elephants. Couldn’t the Zoo officials use their elephants? Should an individual do what the officials should have taken care of?

Now a point to note:
while the Zoo officials didn’t mind using Pramoda Devi’s elephants in the operation, they have never heeded to Pramoda Devi’s request to give her a male elephant. They didn’t even respond to her request for a male elephant to mate with the five females that she has. And yet without any inhibition, they expected her to send them her beloved elephants to save their face. Ungrateful is what the officials have been. Moreover, not a single official thanked Pramoda Devi for her help after the rescue operation.

Monkey Trouble:
While the officials were mired in confusion regarding the weight of the elephants, the dosage of tranquilizer to administer etc., the public made life more difficult for them. As one reporter put it, “The elephants were calm in the morning, it is only after the monkeys (general public) started showing up that they went crazy. It’s like how they show in the movies; when a man is lost in a jungle and thousands of curious baboons threatened by his presence simply start howling, it makes the human react by firing his gun or start running frantically and aimlessly. That’s exactly what happened to the baby tusker. We humans were behaving like the forest baboons.”

Well, what can we say — "welcome to our concrete - jungle where people are just extensions of wild animals with high level of creativity, cunning and ruthlessness?"

In fact, DC Harsha Gupta was so frustrated with the public that he took the lathi and started hitting people himself. Some were even arrested. There is curiosity and then there is being a nuisance. Some people had bunked work to see the elephant chase. One person said, “It’s a once – in – a - life time opportunity”! When too many people think like this, there will be chaos and unruliness. This in turn reduces the efficiency of the officials and finally, the same people will blame the officials for not doing a good job!

Desensitized to wild power:
Most of us have forgotten the strength of animals and the danger they pose. May be watching too much Discovery channel and National Geographic has desensitized us to the awesome power of the wild. That is why we see many tourists getting out of the car at wildlife sanctuaries with their child to take photographs and that is why we see public running near a leopard that is why we see men trying to play cat and mouse with an angry elephant and get killed. People need to be warned, then arrested and beaten back into their homes in times like these. It will save animal, humans and property.

The government has announced a compensation of Rs. 5 lakh for the victim of tusker attack. But, what about the 118 people who have died in animal attacks last year alone? Will they also be compensated?

Many people said that it was the divine wrath of the elephant god Ganesha who was upset that his temples that were illegally built in the district were being demolished. But in that case, the elephants should have gone after DC Harsha Gupta and not Renukaswamy, the person who got killed by the tusker.

Thank god, if Harsha Gupta had been hurt by these elephants, superstition would have got a super steroid shot in the arm and logic would have been tranquilised to death. For now, man - animal conflict will only increase as our lust for land continues to spread like cancer destroying plants and animals alike. Yes, man will always win, but it will be an unworthy victory.

Vikram Muthanna
vikram@starofmysore.com
Courtesy: Star of Mysore