The loss of human life and damage to crops and property on account of elephants have risen due to such illegal “hulla party” activities. The “hulla drives” lead to further agitation by elephants especially when they have calves and they tend to retaliate which in most cases result in human deaths. An average of 350 people has been killed annually over the last five years (2006–10) in the conflict with elephants across India with majority of these cases restricted to Jharkhand, West Bengal, Odisha and Chhattisgarh. The other threat is electrocution from unattended wires. It is indeed shocking that our National Heritage Animal is subjected to such torture and abuse despite there being numerous laws and departmental directives prohibiting such abuse.

HEAL is committed to increase cultural tolerance towards Gajah and simultaneously eradicate threats in its passage. HEAL is providing photo documentation and factual information from the field to aid litigation against hulla drive. In order to prevent elephant electrocution, we met officials of WBSEDCL (website link) along with our collaborating organisation, PUBLIC and these are some of the salient  positive pointers from the meet – HEAL will provide WBSEDCL with a map depicting foraging areas of elephants with help from scientists at SACON (website link). When this map is overlaid with WBSEDCL’s High Tension wire maps, we get a hazard zone map thus helping the electricity department to prioritize zones for insulating wires. A communication plan will also be developed in due time for distributing conservation materials to include resident communities in this conservation venture.