Rampaging elephants terrorize villagers
Pastor Dale Morgan
Rampaging elephants terrorize villagers*
* Story Highlights
* The elephants have destroyed dozens of homes, local officials say
* The animals are said to be looking for their wandering calves
* A local school is being used as a shelter for families left
homeless by rampage
* India has Asia's largest elephant population
GAUHATI, India (AP) -- About 100 wild elephants have converged on a
river island in northeast India, demolishing homes, feasting on
sugarcane and panicking residents, officials said Saturday.
Wild elephants play in the Deeparbil wetland, a wildlife sanctuary, in
Deeparbil, India.
Thousands of villagers were using firecrackers and bonfires to scare
away the rampaging animals.
"Dozens of houses have been destroyed in the past three days by adult
elephants entering human settlements to look for their wandering
calves," said the local magistrate, L.S. Changsan.
Up to 50 families have moved to a local school being used as a refugee
camp, Changsan said.
About 150,000 people live on the 338-square mile island of Majuli in the
Brahmaputra River, nearly 220 miles east of Assam state's capital, Gauhati.
Officials say the elephants swam to the island from a nearby hill
region, beginning their rampage nearly a week ago.
"Forestry workers and officials are on the island, trying to assist the
villagers in pushing the elephants away from the settlements," Changsan
said. "The job is proving difficult."
India has Asia's largest elephant population, with 10,000 to 15,000 of
the animals, but their numbers are declining due to habitat loss and
poaching.
Assam state alone accounts for nearly 5,000 wild elephants.
Conservationists say the animals have killed more than 600 people in the
state over the past 16 years.
Satellite imagery by India's National Remote Sensing Agency shows that
up to 280,000 hectares of Assam's forests have been cleared in 1996-2000.
Angry villagers' attacks on wandering elephants in the area have shocked
conservationists. Villagers poisoned 19 wild elephants in northern
Assam's Sonitpur district in 2001 after the animals feasted on crops and
demolished huts.