Food is running short for Asian elephants in their natural habitat in Kaptai National Park, Rangamati, The Daily Star Bangla reports. Disease has thinned the bamboo and undergrowth, and people take creepers and other food from the forest, so herds are coming down into villages in search of food and the risk of conflict with people is rising.
Kaptai National Park, about 200 years old, is one of the country's oldest protected forests and has long been home to Asian elephants. The Forest Department says it now has about 40 to 45 elephants, including six or seven calves. Elephants used to come into villages less often; now they come frequently, especially at night.
Sudatta Chakma, chairman of Jibtali union parishad, said nobody sleeps when elephants move about at night, and in Chairman Para nobody goes out after 8pm for fear of them. Omar Faruk Swadhin, a former Kaptai range officer, said elephants' food dwindles in the dry season, and that some people still slip past forest officials to gather plants in the habitat despite being told not to.
Kaptai range officer Md Mamunur Rahman said elephants with enough to eat do not go into villages or attack homes and people. Their dung shows they eat mostly grass-type food, especially bamboo and bamboo leaves, he said, and the department is trying to plant fruit and bamboo groves where they roam.
Professor M A Aziz of the zoology department at Jahangirnagar University said an adult elephant needs about 150 to 200 kg of food and about 150 litres of water a day, feeding on grass, leaves, bark and fruit from 100 to 500 plant species.
Planting may bring temporary relief, he said, but protecting natural food sources matters more: stopping people gathering food in the elephants' habitat, keeping the forest's water bodies and streams flowing, and protecting the reserved forest properly. Then the elephants would find food naturally and no separate plantations would be needed. The report is by Ricourse Chakma of The Daily Star.
Photo: AKM Emdadul Islam Bitu / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)
Source: The Daily Star
Comments
(0)