Vishakhapatanam: A forest department tracker was trampled to death by a herd of about six elephants that he was following on the Andhra-Odisha border in Vizianagaram district on Sunday night.
The victim was identified as Nimmaka Rajababu, 34, one of the 30-member team team tracking the herd. Rajababu was a native of K. Gumada village in Srikakulam district and was an outsourcing employee of the forst department.
As news of the incident spread, people expressed apprehensions over their safety in the light of the movement of elephants.
Srinivasa Rao, a resident at Komarada, said “A well-trained forest staffer was killed. One wonders what would have happened if any villager faced a similar situation. For our safety the government should immediately send these elephants to other areas. If the government does not take action, people will not bear it.”
When contacted, Vizianagaram collector Surya Kumari said, “We have already discussed the matter and are now sending proposals with some options like creating a zoo, transporting the elephants to Visakhapatnam zoo or setting up barbed fencing at susceptible areas.”
Vizianagaram district forest officer Venkatesh Sambangi said that the current method of tracking elephants is the solution for now, as long as people maintain their distance from the herds. Every method has its pros and cons, and needs legal clearances, Sambangi said.
“It is to mitigate the man-animal conflict that we engaged 30 elephant trackers just to make locals aware and to prevent the casualties in the villages,” Sambangi said. “Unfortunately the tracker got killed.”
The proposal to move the elephants away from the spot, if approved, will involve securing several kinds of permission, creation of infrastructure, bringing in expertise and finances, Sambangi said while adding that experts of Wildlife Institute of India were roped in to find out how to mitigate the problem.
Speaking to Deccan Chronicle, AP principal chief conservator of forests N. Prateep Kumar said that the family of the deceased would get a compensation of Rs 5 lakh. “We are also working on various methods to mitigate the elephants’ menace in the AOB,” Prateep Kumar said.
