Hungry elephants raid flood camps

KOLKATA: Molasses stocked in relief camps are drawing elephants in search of food, striking terror among inmates at Nayagram in West Midnapore district.

“Elephants are very intelligent and they know that food will be available at places where people have taken shelter. “The smell of molasses, which they can detect from a distance, also attracts them,” Kharagpur divisional forest officer Milan Kanti Mandol said.

The elephants, probably unable to get enough food, were raiding the relief camps at night, he said, confirming two such incidents.

Mandol said every year elephant herds from Dalma in neighbouring Jharkhand entered the district, with two or more staying back.

The elephants staying back are either strayed from their herds or not strong enough to take on tuskers. The elephants raiding the relief camps were such segregated elephants, he said.

Mandol, who visited the camps on Tuesday, said a group of four elephants damaged 200 houses in the past fortnight at Nayagram before the area was affected by floods.
Normally, people armed with drums and torches form “hulla parties” and chase them away, but the floods have made this difficult, he said.