Ooty: The Nilgiri Tribal Solidarity (TNTS) expressed its anguish over Nilgiri district administration's lackadaisical attitude towards addressing issues relating to man-animal conflict as 10 human deaths have been reported in nine months time this year alone.
Over the past two years, the man-animal conflict has become a serious issue to deal with in Nilgiris as man-eater episode accounted for four deaths while a sloth bear attack
near Kotagiri last March claimed the lives of a couple, said Prof T.K. Kullan, president, TNTS.
“Straying of tigers, panthers, elephants, guars and now sloth bear has become very common that is keeping the public, especially in rural areas under the grip of constant fear. To address this issue and to evolve new mechanisms for rehabilitating victims and their families, TNTS had approached the Nilgiris collector, Dr P. Sankar, a couple of months ago to convene a meeting on this. But nothing has been done on this, he said.
“Our petition to the chief minister cell on this was routed to the collector and the answer we received from his personal assistant was disappointing as there was no mention about convening a meet for a discussion,” he said.
TNTS want officials to hear out the local people on the issue, to use their traditional knowledge to minimize the conflict and thereby mitigate the suffering.
