Train kills a young elephant in Kerala
Just over a week ago, on August 15th – Indian Independence Day – a female, juvenile elephant, estimated to have been about 3-4 years old, was struck by a train and killed between Walayar and Kanjikode, in the state of Kerala, on the railway line between Coimbatore and Palakkad. The Silent Valley National Park lies to the northwest and the Parambikulam Wildlife Sanctuary to the south.
The incident is reported to have occurred at 9:30pm, and adds to a worrying tally of at least twelve other elephants killed by trains in India this year alone: eight in Assam and four in West Bengal. On the same line in Kerala, four elephants were also reported to have been killed last year.
Railways now cut through most prime elephant habitat in India, and Elephant Family has been supporting the Wildlife Trust of India on its initiatives to reduce the number of accidents in areas where elephants routinely cross the tracks. These have so far focussed on Assam, where the number of incidents has been on the increase, but also extends to Kerala and Tamil Nadu. A team from WTI went immediately to the site of the accident to help the railway and forest officials in their investigations. With a better understanding of the contributing factors towards the accident, they will then be able to introduce measures to try and prevent further accidents. In many cases, including some of the incidents this year, accidents have happened because the trains have been speeding, and therefore “go-slow” zones in accident hot-spots can be introduced with warning signs to alert the drivers, while legal speed restrictions also have to be enforced. Other simple, but extremely effective solutions include the clearance of shrubbery around blind-spots, the levelling of steep embankments where elephants can find themselves trapped, and the running of night patrols with the railway and forest departments to alert train drivers to any elephants crossing the tracks.
Also last week came an extraordinary report from the Gulma Forest near Jalpaiguri, West Bengal of a lone bull elephant charging a train and head-butting it. At first the bull was blocking the track, and the train came to a stop 50m away. It then charged, kicked the engine, waited a moment and then rammed it before heading off. The forest department was called in and drove the elephant 2km into the forest, but it came back and again blocked the tracks and charged and rammed another train before heading off into the forest.
It is suspected that the bull was part of a herd that was crossing the track last month when a train hit and killed one of the members of the herd. It is also in roughly the same area that two other elephants have been killed this year, and so it is thought that the bull was somehow seeking revenge.
written by Dan Bucknell on 23rd August 10
