The Elephants in Thorapally

My name is Arunkumar and I work at the Shola Trust. Here I have written about the problem of elephants, tourists and jackfruit near Mudumalai.
Every year around jackfruit season, there is some elephant trouble at thorapally, a town near Mudumalai. It is on the highway, and lots of tourists come there. The main problem is that local people sell jackfruit in large quantities, so elephants come to eat it. Since there are lots of tourists, it becomes a very dangerous situation. Till now only one big elephant (called Barathan by local people) used to come. He was a makhna (male without tusks) and was very peaceful. After eating he used to go into Northern Hay RF also, and be there for some days, and then go back into Mudumalai. Now two others also come with him, and they are not peaceful so the situation is very dangerous.
The forest department tried to stop this problem by digging trenches on both sides of the road, but now the problem is worse. Before they used to come quietly through the forest, but now they walk along the main road and are not at all scared of people.(Green line is tiger reserve border, and red line the the ‘elephant proof trench’)
Recently we had information that the elephants have started coming again. Hearing this, on May 27th Ramesh, Tarsh anna, and me went to Thorapally to take good photographs of the elephants and makes notes about the problem. The checkpost and highway closes at 9.00 pm, so we went at that time, but by then the local people told us two elephants had crossed the gate already and were hiding behind some buildings. For some time the guard tried to chase the elephants away, but after some time he gave up and opened the checkpost for them. One young tusker had come first, then when they chased him back he came back again with Barathan, and they both entered Thorapally.
We were walking along the main road, a bit scared to go away from it since two elephants were waiting. We walked up and down for about half an hour, but the two elephants did not come to the main road. Then one boy from Thorapally came on a bike riding fast to us and said one more elephant had come through the checkpost. He told Tarsh anna to come with him on the bike, and Ramesh and me went running behind.

When we reached there Tarsh anna was taking a photograph of the tusker which was standing behind the school. We thought we may not get good pictures with our camera since it was dark, but local fellows were busy taking pictures with their mobiles also. When more people gathered around, the elephant started moving slowly behind the bamboo.

The people from Thorapally knew that the elephant will come again through another way. We told them we are doing some research, but they didn’t believe and thought we came from Discovery Channel. They all made us run this side and that side saying it will come out here and there. But waste of time it did not come through the way they said. After ten minutes the tusker came near a lorry which was parked near the road. I had the bushnell camera trap with me, since it can take infrared videos in the night time. When all where looking at the elephant I slowly moved near the lorry and hid behind it and held out the camera to get a good video. When I was doing this Tarsh anna came slowly near me and climbed on the lorry, then Ramesh and me also got inside the lorry and got more pictures from very close. Slowly the local people and tourists started to disturb the elephant by shining light and throwing stones on the poor tusker whose eyes was full of tears. It was not a peaceful Elephant like Barathan and was very scared and angry. One cat when close and it chased it like anything. After that we decided to leave because we didn’t want the people to disturb the tusker too much. We slowly packed up from there and left.

It was one elephant before, then it became three elephants, and last week (6th August), some local people and Tarsh anna saw seven males together of different ages, all coming together near thorapally. Elephants males don’t normally come together like that, but now they are coming since there is so much waste food available for them outside Mudumalai.

This problem is not going to stop now, and will only get worse. Tourists from Kerala see elephants walking on the road and think these elephants are also like those temple elephants. Soon some tourists will get killed and they will blame it on the elephants.

Camera Trap

My name is Ramesh and I work at The Shola Trust, and in this blog I am going to write about our a new project which is setting Camera Traps on private land.

Camera trap is like an ordinary camera, but it has a sensor, which will automatically take a picture if anything moves in front of it. We want to see what all animals are there in tea estates, and we want to get the land owners more interested in wildlife. I have written about my experience in the last two weeks of doing this.

We have two camera traps which Bushnell (which can take videos and photos), and the IISc camera trap (which is little old and can take only photos). IISc in Bangalore has lent the unit to us, so we call it the IISc Camera Trap. Bushnell takes videos in the night with Infra-red light, and the IISc one has a flash. We don’t have the permission from the Forest department to set the camera trap in the forests, so we are working on private lands.

First we went to Tarsh anna’s house at 27th mile. It’s at the bottom of a mountain called Thavalai Mallai. The whole Shola Trust team was there and we set both the camera traps (IISc and Bushnell) on a small Sandal wood tree. Then Tarsh anna and others walked like an animal in front of the camera to check the position is correct or not. Next day he brought the camera to office and we checked the video and photos. We got good videos of Wild boar and close up picture of Porcupine. Tariq anna took a session with me on all the settings in the camera traps and handling it. Next few days I went alone to the same area and set the camera trap but different locations. We got more pictures and videos of sambar deer.

After one week I changed the place to Nandakumar uncle’s land in Kokkal. Even this place is also below a mountain called Kokkal mallai which is near the the Thavalai mallai. I kept the camera with the help of Anti poaching worker (APW) who lives in a nearby village. He showed me a path where a Leopard moves regularly. There was an small orange tree nearby, and I tied up only the Bushnell camera on the tree as the IISc camera was not working.

This is a screen shot from the video of the elephants foot as it kicks the camera

Next day early morning the APW called me told that the camera was hanging and somebody had tried to remove it. Its a very expensive camera, so I went to the place as soon as possible and saw that the camera was really hanging from the tree by the chain. I opened the camera and checked the video. Unbelievable – it was an Elephant that had come and tried to break the camera. It had tried to break it with its trunk and head, then also tried to kick it and stamp on it. But luckily Tarsh anna had made a outer cover with steel and I had locked it with a heavy chain. Otherwise that would have been be the end of our camera. Good thing it was not a tusker. That was that was the first time we got a video of an Elephant in our camera.

After that we kept the camera in a village called Chembakolli which is near Mudumalai tiger Reserve. We kept it close to Arun and Dhanesh’s houses. And we got a massive tusker crossing. We kept it again in Tarsh Anna’s house for a few days. He was saying that we should not worry too much about big animals like elephant, leopard and tiger, and should also be happy with getting close up pictures of small animals like porcupine and mouse deer. Next day morning he messaged me saying to check my email. He had sent a a good clear picture of a leopard leg! I was really happy see that, but sorry that we didn’t get full picture of it. And now that is wallpaper of Tarsh anna’s laptop, though he still talks about how we should concentrate on mouse deer, civet cats and all. Mari aunty also liked the picture and wrote a blog about it.

Though people all know leopard is there, it makes us happy to see a picture. So our plan is working. We hope people will remove electric fences after getting more pictures.

And soon we hope to get good clear pictures and video of more leopards, tigers and elephants.

We are grateful for the support from The Elephant Family and many other individual donors for this work.

Elephants and Panchayat Presidents

On 28th of June we had a meeting about Human Elephant Conflict at the RDO (Revenue Divisional Officer) office with the help of Rotary Club (Dr. Venkatesh). We had called all the nine panchayat presidents, and the RDO, senior police officers (DySP), and Forest Department Range Officers, various NGOs etc.

Ramesh explaining about the wider geography of the region

The main reason of the meeting was to ask all the panchayats about their experience of problems with elephants and what they thought were the solutions. First Dr. Venkatesh welcomed all the people on behalf of Rotary club, and we gave an introduction about the issue and about elephants.

Then RDO spoke about how everyone should work together to solve the problem and not all fight with forest department. DySP spoke about the problems for police and how too many people gather and make it a law and order problem whenever elephants come. Mr. Sivasubramaniam from WWF also spoke about the elephant problems in other areas, and what methods are working in other areas.

Tarsh and Arun talking about an Early Warning System

Then each panchayat president spoke about the problems. Though we told them to also speak about solutions they mostly only complained about problems. Most of them are politicians from DMK or AIDMK, and some are not interested in solving the problem, only to keep fighting.

This is a summary of what the panchayat people had to say:

• Compensation should be given on time, and not delayed.
• Compensation is only given for patta (private) land, it should also be given for others.
• For death, compensation amount should be increased to 5 lakhs, and 2 lakhs for injury.
• Insurance for agriculture is a must. Forest Department should provide this.
• Relocation of Chetty community from Mudumalai should happen soon and not be delayed.
• More high quality electric fences are needed, and trenches also need to be maintained well otherwise they get filled every year with mud after monsoon.
• Forest department should help people to chase the elephants away when they come.

Panchayat Member talking animatedly to the forest and revenue officials

At the same time, some opposite views were also given:

• All the elephant killing people are by accident, they don’t intentionally kill people. People often throw burning rubber, light fire, burst crackers etc and then elephants become scared and become very violent.
• Elephants are very clever and will break the fences and cross the trenches if you plant crops they like to eat. Bananas are favourite food of elephants, and people should not plant more of these.
• At the same time there is less grass in the forest for elephants to eat since lantana is growing everywhere. That needs to be removed.
• In Thorapalli they have put trenches on both sides of the road, and now problem is even more as elephants come along main road.
• Forest department is digging trenches in a foolish way. The elephants are all inside the village area, and trench is being dug so they cannot go back into forests. First elephants should all be chased out, then only trenches should be dug.
• Trenches will work only in some areas near to Mudumalai, they cannot work in all the places, since elephants are living in Gudalur division all the time.
• People are building houses and roads and in areas that elephants come regularly. This makes the problem even worse in other areas also.

Forest department Range officers also spoke positively. They said their aim is to work more closely with local people, and together find solutions. People should think forest department can solve all the problems, and they also should cooperate, not only fight all the time. They said they will cooperate with local people as much as possible to form more Eco Development Committees (EDCs) so they can all work together to solve the issue. They will try their best to give compensation on time.

So all together people themselves know most of the issues. But they do not agree among themselves, and most are still angry with the forest department.

Next we are going to have meetings in all the panchayats and in villages, and we will make more detailed plans about what can be done. People from Srimadurai, Cherambady and O’Valley Panchayats were very interested in having a meeting there.

We are thankful to the Elephant Family and many other individual donors for supporting our work.

Notes by Ramesh M, The Shola Trust. 30th June, 2013.