GAUHATI, India — Wildlife experts in northeastern India are experimenting with a new weapon to deter marauding elephants: superhot chilies.
Conservationists working on the experimental project in Assam state said they have put up jute fences smeared with automobile grease and bhut jolokia — also known as the ghost chili and certified as the world’s hottest chili by the Guinness Book of World Records. They also were using smoke bombs made from the chili to keep elephants out.
“We fill straw nests with pungent dry chili and attach them to sticks before burning it. The fireball emits a strong pungent smell that succeeds in driving away elephants,” Nandita Hazarika of the Assam Haathi (Elephant) Project told the Associated Press on Monday.
Hazarika said the chilies would not be eaten and that the smell would be enough to repel the elephants. He emphasized the measures would not harm the animals.
Conservationists say wild elephants increasingly attack human settlements encroaching on their natural habitat. Satellite imagery by India’s National Remote Sensing Agency shows that up to 691,880 acres of Assam’s forests were cleared from 1996 to 2000.
More than 600 people have been killed by wild elephants in Assam in the past 16 years.
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