GAUHATI, India – Wild elephant herds have been terrorizing India’s remote northeast, killing people, flattening houses and even guzzling local rice beer supplies, prompting villagers to retaliate against the pachyderms with firecrackers and bonfires.
With an estimated 5,000 elephants, Assam state has the largest concentration of wild Asiatic elephants in India, said M.C. Malakar, Assam’s Chief Wildlife Warden.
The big herds, faced with shrinking forest cover and human encroachment of their corridors, venture into human settlements looking for food and attack those who try to stop them. Wild elephants have killed at least 22 people so far this year in Assam, wildlife authorities say.
The wild elephants have stampeded across the region, stomping down houses and feasting on standing crops, Pradyut Bordoloi, Assam state’s forest minister, said Saturday.
Rice beer is an attraction. Workers in tea plantations in Assam make rice beer at home and store it in drums.
“There are many instances of wild elephants guzzling the brew and returning for more,” Bordoloi said.
Wildlife officials and villagers use firecrackers and bonfires to scare away the large herds, Bordoloi said. Villagers also beat on drums.
In 2001, at least 19 wild elephants were poisoned to death by angry villagers, Bordoloi said.
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