Wayanad jumbo attack sparks off blame game between Kerala-Karnataka forest departments
Mananthavady: The death of a Padamala native in an elephant attack on Saturday has triggered a blame game between Kerala-Karnataka forest departments.
It is now said that the officials of the Kerala forest department had requested their Karnataka counterparts to share the information required for tracking the wild elephant presently wreaking havoc in the Mananthavady region. The officials of the neighbouring state responded by sharing the user ID and password of the radio collar attached to the elephant. However, the information received in this manner was often delayed by five to eight hours. As a result, Kerala officials talked to the Karnataka chief forest officer asking him to provide an antenna and receiver for tracking the jumbo’s movements. However, the officer did not oblige to the request. North Region CCF KS Deepa narrated the incident at a press conference the other day.
Meanwhile, Kerala arranged an alternate antenna and receiver. However, Karnataka was not willing to share the frequency details. Exactly the same issues were faced in the case of Thaneer Komban as well. There is no great use with the radio collar information after the elephant ventures into human settlements.
Kerala Forest Minister AK Saseendran has assured to bring the situation under ‘control’ at the earliest. A high-level meeting will be convened to discuss the menace. “The problem can be solved only with the cooperation of the people. People gathering in larger numbers in the affected region will further worsen the situation. The government is currently looking into the matter very seriously. We are at the moment trying to drive the elephant back into the forest. Darting the elephant will be the last option. The most important thing is to ensure there is no further human or property loss due to the incident. Simple measures won’t help in solving this pressing issue in Wayanad,” said Saseendran.
However agitated residents have raised allegations against the forest department officials. They claimed that they received no information regarding the imminent threat. While asked about the details of drone surveillance, the officials replied that they did not have much information on the elephant, they also said that the drone was kept for charging at a place. Locals are still wondering why forest officials are unable to drive the elephant back into the forests. While the forest officials and the government failed to share any sort of information with them, people sent messages regarding the alarming situation to each other via WhatsApp.