Elephants wreak havoc in Gudiyattam farmlands

According to villagers, a herd of 11 jumbos from the Kaundanya elephant sanctuary in neighbouring Andhra Pradesh, which were entering villages near Gudiyattam and Pernambut in Vellore district in search of food, were destroying crops in several hundreds of acres.

On the night of December 24, the herd went on a rampage in the mango farms of Babu and Usman and destroyed 40 and 11 trees respectively. The next night that is on Dec 25, elephants damaged 60 plantain plants owned by Kasi and another 30 in the farm owned by Khudhus. The herd then targeted Babu’s field again where they destroyed another 50 mango trees.

On information, forest department staff reached the spot and drove away the herd using crackers and carbide guns. However, senior forest officials said that, “The damage was not that severe like in the incidents at Coimbatore. As the present period is the migration season for elephants, officials cannot help much other than making efforts to prevent the jumbos from straying into the farmlands.”

Panic gripped residents of Arunkaldurgam village near Ambur on Wednesday morning after a calf and two goats were found dead with bite marks on their bodies.

Balaraman, a farmer, had tethered the calf outside his house. While he went to give water for the calf, he found it lying dead with deep bite marks and flesh protruding out. When he alerted his neighbours, Kumaravel, another farmer, found his two goats lying dead in the same condition.

On information, forest department staff, who arrived and conducted a search in the village and its vicinity, found pug marks of a leopard. Later, the officials assured the farmers that they would take necessary steps to ensure that the animal does not return to the village.

When contacted, senior forest department officials said that they were collecting information to identify what kind of animal that had killed the cattle in Arunkaldurgam. Anyway, all necessary action would be initiated to protect farmers’ livestock from such attacks, they assured.