Climate change, habitat loss drive elephants to look for newer ...

Andhra Pradesh’s Chittoor district had eight elephants in 2012, which increased to 30 by 2017. By 2024, the number has risen to approximately 100, according to the country-wide Synchronised Elephant Population Estimation.

These numbers don’t call for a celebration. They don’t indicate an increase in elephant population in the district, but point to a significant change, a historically unusual one, in the movement of elephants from neighbouring Tamil Nadu and Karnataka.

For more than two decades, elephants from Cauvery North Wildlife Sanctuary (CNWS) in Tamil Nadu and Bannerghatta National Park (BNP) in Karnataka have been crossing the congested NH7 highway and the busy Rayakottai railway line — a distance of about 200 km — to enter human settlements in Chittoor.

A perilous journey

The Bannerghatta-Hosur landscape encompasses the Bannerghatta National Park in southern Karnataka, and Cauvery North Wildlife Sanctuary and Hosur scrublands in northern Tamil Nadu. It hosts close to 650 elephants, as per the 2017 data from the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEFCC). Why are these elephants making a risky cross-border journey to Andhra Pradesh, which has no source population of elephants? For context, a source population refers to an established group of animals in a particular area that reproduces and sustains the population. Without such a population, the arrival of elephants in Andhra Pradesh suggests they are migrating from other regions possibly due to unfavourable conditions in their native habitat.

“Due to habitat loss, anomalous movement is becoming more frequent, leading to the establishment of (elephant) populations in areas outside historical elephant ranges (this includes Koundinya Wildlife Sanctuary in Chittoor district). These movements have resulted in an increase in human-elephant conflict (HEC),” mentions a 2021 study on elephant and human mortality in this landscape.

Habitat loss is pushing many elephant herds from the Bannerghatta-Hosur landscape spread across Tamil Nadu and Karnataka to travel to Andhra Pradesh for food, leading to negative interactions with farmers. Image by curiouslog via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.0).

Coincidentally, the landscape has been noticing unseasonal rainfall and drought in what researchers say is a likely consequence of climate change. A subsequent food crisis is pushing elephants to move into the agri-rich Chittoor in search of food. Anthropogenic activities contribute to the food crisis as well. “Tamil Nadu witnessed more forest fires this year than usual. Secondly, contractors at Cauvery North Wildlife Sanctuary chase elephants away so that the tamarind crops are not disturbed,” said C. Chaitanya Kumar Reddy, former District Forest Officer, Chittoor.

Problematic development plans

The crisis is expected to worsen as more infrastructural projects are planned in these biodiversity-rich regions. To enhance water supply to the state, the Karnataka government is all set to construct a dam in Cauvery North Wildlife Sanctuary, even though experts warn of the consequential environmental disaster. The submergence of forest land would result in cutting off many viable wildlife and elephant ranging routes.

A four-lane expressway has been proposed over Bannerghatta National Park, another project that could displace elephants. Over the years, wildlife corridors in the Bannerghatta-Hosur landscape have been noticing a decrease in green cover and an increase in the illegal felling of timber. Here, Eastern Ghats forests – where the highly sought-after red sandalwood trees were once abundant – are now visibly fragmented.

“Elephants follow the same routes of migration. However, as their habitats have been unliveable over the years, they changed their routes too,” said Reddy, attributing this elephant movement in the Bannerghatta-Hosur landscape to land-use changes.

“Elephants here are known to disperse long distances into these fragile human-dominated ecosystems to supplement their daily resource needs. In this case, they are gathering at croplands that provide high quality fodder and water throughout the year, which may not be available in their natal range without competition. Thus, a sizable population of elephants in the Bannerghatta-Hosur landscape could possibly resort to foraging on crops as a survival strategy,” explained Avinash Krishnan, a member of the IUCN-SSC Asian Elephant Specialist Group.

Farmers live in fear

Located in the foothills of the Eastern Ghats, Chittoor’s forests are linear and thin, with no vegetation to support elephants, leading them to move to farmlands. Anjaneyalu (name changed), a local farmer, suffered a loss of five lakh rupees when a herd of elephants foraged on his two-acre tomato farm and depradated his mango trees in January this year. “My father faced no such issues. Neither did my grandfather. This is a recent phenomenon that has been discouraging farmers to get into agriculture,” Anjaneyalu told Mongabay India, confiding that he had chased them away with sticks and even considered setting up electric fences in his farm. “The district has famous shrines that worship elephants. That’s what is stopping me from doing it,” he added.

Between 2013-2024, elephant movements resulted in the damage of as much as 5,947 acres of cropland and death of 26 citizens and 54 cattle in Chittoor, according to the report submitted by the forest department to the Andhra Pradesh government.

Unlike traditional elephant habitats, people from these areas are not accustomed to coexisting with elephants, resulting in negative interactions. To protect their crops, farmers also set up illegal electric fences, resulting in the electrocution of elephants. During the same time period, 28 elephants were killed, out of which 21 were electrocuted, the report states.

A representational image shows the extent of damage caused by elephants. The human-elephant conflict situation in Chittoor is expected to worsen as governments plan new infrastructural projects on elephant migration routes. Image by Ganesh Raghunathan via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0).

Electrocutions were mostly caused by illegal electric fences placed around farmlands, or low-slung electrical wires from pylons, according to the report, which also attributes their mortality to poaching and railway accidents. India’s annual loss due to human-elephant conflict is estimated at one million hectares of destroyed crops, 400 human deaths and 100 dead elephants, according to a 2021 study.

“Climate change has a bearing on rainfall and drought but we need fool-proof studies to establish it. In certain areas such as the Eastern Himalayas, as the climate is warmer, elephants are moving further up the altitudes. In central Indian states such as Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand, elephants destroying crops is common as the landscape is fragmented,” said Upasana Ganguly, officer in-charge of the Right of Passage Elephant Corridors Projects at the Wildlife Trust of India.

Mitigation measures

In August this year, the Karnataka government agreed to send eight trained captive elephants (kumkis) and mahouts to drive away wild elephants in Chittoor. While this could be a temporary solution, it doesn’t solve the root cause.

“To mitigate conflict, Chittoor forest department has erected elephant proof trenches and solar fences, increased the network of forest department officials through base camps and is relying on drones to identify herds,” Reddy said. Another solution proposed by the district to the state government was the installation of rail barricades.

It is a problem that needs to be addressed between the states of Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka by formulating an inter-state HEC management plan, according to Krishnan. “Such coordinated efforts considering the nuances of human-elephant conflict at a landscape scale could possibly keep negative interactions between people and elephants at manageable levels. This could foster better cooperation between local state forest departments, communities and other stakeholders. At some point in the future, we may have to consider the zonation of land in the Bannerghatta-Hosur landscape to manage these elephants more effectively,” Krishnan said.

Banner image: Negative interactions with elephants are on the rise in Chittoor district of Andhra Pradesh which doesn’t have a source population of the animal. Elephants travel from neighbouring states to forage in croplands. Image by DhirajDas991 via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0).