THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Finding that mimicry and shooting in the air are of no use, even counter productive, the Forest Department has decided to take on crop-raiding elephants the way western democracies spurn rioters. The Department will use gas guns and rubber bullets on wild elephants ravaging crops along the fringes of forests. Since such anti-rioting weapons are used only by the police, the Department has put forward a request to the DGP to spare specialists for the purpose till Centre grants permission to its own personnel.
"We have made a request to the Centre to allow our personnel to use the guns. Till this is secured, the Department's Rapid Response Teams will seek the help of the police as a stop-gap measure," a top Forest Department official said. The State Police Department might spare two policemen each to assist the Rapid Response Teams in eight affected locations: Thalipparamba (Kannur), Sulthan Bathery (Wayanad), Thamarassery (Kozhikode), Nilambur (Malappuram), Mannakad (Palakkad), Olavakkode (Palakkad), Ranni (Pathanamthitta) and Peppara (Thiruvananthapuram). There is a realisation in the Forest Department that its strategies for dealing with crop-raiders are not effective.
The usual methods it employed were either ineffective or dangerous. An oft-used technique was to scare the elephant by blaring the sound of a lion through an improvised speaker. When this does not work, which is usually the case, forest personnel resort to shooting in the air using a .315 bore rifle. "Both the methods have been found to be ineffective. Gunshot, at times, has even caused grave injury to the animal," the official said. Rubber bullets are rubber or rubber-coated projectiles that can be fired from either standard firearms or dedicated riot guns. "They are intended to be a non-lethal alternative to metal bullets. But even they can cause fatalities in animals," said animal activist Janaki Raman.
