Friday, October 24, 2008
The elephant-human war of attrition
The reports I post here are almost all out of India, where the difficulties of humans and elephants vying for the same territory is well known. So the stories rarely include the back story. The same but less severe problem exists in Africa - here's and article with backstory,
Okullu said the elephants had destroyed the crops of up to 800 people in his village.
"Crops like bananas, millet, sweet potatoes, beans, cassava, maize, yams, have been uprooted and eaten," he said.
Internally displaced people in Amuru march to protest damage caused by elephants
Area residents accused the government of prioritising wildlife over the welfare of returning IDPs - in reference to the government's failure to revise the law on wild protected animals.
Between May and July, an estimated 100 elephants from the park roamed villages in Gulu and Amuru, ravaging crops and interrupting the reintegration of IDPs.
Uganda's wildlife senior conservation officer, Stonewall Kato, told IRIN in Gulu that in recent years there has been an explosion in the number of elephants in the park, forcing some to stray out in search of water and food.
"It's a problem, but the law prohibits the killing of wild life. We have dispatched a team of rangers to drive the elephants back," Kato said.
Labels: elephants amok
// posted by Erik @ 10/24/2008 10:42:00 PM
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