Dhenkanal/Angul The being that was pacing outside the home; they call him Death.

On June 23, 77-year-old Saheb Rout from Magubereni village of Dhenkanal district arose at 4am, while it was still dark. He stepped outside his front door, as usual, to relieve himself. He blearily walked past the incandescent bulb strapped to a bamboo stick glowing dimly, failing in its primary purpose. The paddy farmer had barely taken a few steps when from the shadows emerged an incensed elephant who picked him up and hurled him away. Rout fell motionless, but the elephant did not relent, stabbing him in the chest with his tusk.

Inside the house, Rout’s elder son Tapan, back home on vacation from Gujarat where he works as a cook, heard his father scream. He ran outside, only to find the tusker still standing there, grunting, and seemingly guarding Rout’s body. “I froze, unable to comprehend what was happening. The tusker seemed enraged, and stood near the body for over an hour. Only then did it leave for the forest. We call them (elephants) Death,” said Tapan.

It is a death that is becoming increasingly familiar in Odisha. Rout was one of 57 people trampled by elephants in the three months between April and June. Overall, the year has seen 103 deaths already. The April-June numbers are Odisha’s highest ever for the period; in 2022, 38 people were killed during those months and there were 33 such deaths in 2021. Last year, Bhupender Yadav, Union minister for forests, environment and climate change, told the Lok Sabha that 1,578 people died of elephant attacks between 2019-20 and 2021-22. Of these, Odisha accounted for 322 deaths, the highest, followed by Jharkhand with 291.

Most experts are in agreement that the growing conflict is concerning, almost entirely man-made, and revolves around one fundamental question.

Sandeep Kumar Tiwari, wildlife conservationist who works with Wildlife Trust of India, said, “What is happening is a matter of concern for every conservationist. Human life is not cheap. One major reason is the fragmentation and the loss of habitat for elephants through a variety of reasons. On top of that most connectivity corridors are either not notified or not operationalised. If you look at the adjoining elephant habitats of Chhattisgarh or Jharkhand, the situation is more or less the same.”

So the question is (as Tiwari asked): Where do the elephants go?

The growing problem

One clear factor experts point to is the decrease in elephant habitats throughout Odisha, from 2,044 in 1979, to 1,976 in 2017, when the last census of elephants was conducted. The real fall is likely to be sharper. What this means is that for reasons ranging from mindless construction, deforestation, the growth of human habitation and mining, the elephant population has become increasingly cloistered.

Odisha has 32.9% of country’s reserve of iron ore deposits, 60% of bauxite deposits, 98.4% of chromite deposits, 24.8% of coal deposits, and 67.6% of Manganese deposits, according to data from the state mining department. With most of these deposits in forest-rich areas, mining has put stress on elephant habitats. The Kuldiha and Hadgarh wildlife sanctuaries and the Similipal National Park were once part of a continuous stretch of forest area, now disconnected by chromite mining at the Baula reserve forest. Mining isn’t the only culprit. The districts of Dhenkanal and Angul have witnessed the construction of a 218km Rengali canal to ferry water from the Brahmani river to over 218,000 hectare of farmland in the year 1997, scything through elephant habitat.

Arabinda Majhi of Dhenkanal district, who works with educating locals on the human-elephant conflict, said that in his district, the problem has been exacerbated by the rise in stone quarries in the forests. “There are at least 200 quarry pits, both active and abandoned, in forest ranges of Dhenkanal forest division. Some of these quarries that mine for black and laterite stones are more than 50m in depth, and are often backed by influential people. How will elephants find peace when hundreds of trucks rumble through the forests, destroying the habitat?” Majhi asked.

Biswajit Mohanty, a wildlife conservationist, said: “Rampant mining in the forests is behind the destruction of elephant corridors and vital habitat essential for long ranging species like Indian elephants. In August 2019, three elephants were mowed down by two trucks in Keonjhar district while they were crossing NH-20 which connects the port town of Paradip. Mining is forcing elephants to use highways in districts such as Keonjhar, Jajpur and Dhenkanal — which they use to enter villages in search for food.”

And, as Mohanty points out, it doesn’t end well for anyone. “This is a battle both sides, elephants and humans are losing.”

Since 2014-15, at least 743 elephants have died in Odisha’s forests, a substantial number of them due to the man-elephant conflict, poaching, and electrocution. And the rate at which they are dying is rising.

Between 1990 and 2000, Odisha lost an average of 33 elephants every year according to data from the wildlife wing of the state forest department. But between 2014 and 2023, that number has grown to above 80 elephants a year. The rising fatalities create greater risk because of the paucity of breeding males, that eventually lead to issues of inbreeding and the birth of unhealthy calves, experts said. The 2017 elephant census said that of the 1976 elephants in Odisha, only 344 were adult males.

An emerging patternAn analysis of the deaths in 2023-24 shows that many of the people killed were attacked in close proximity to their villages when victims went into the forest to collect non-timber forest produce into their farms, or food sources typically found near human habitation. Of the 57 people killed between April and June, 14 were killed in mango orchards, eight when they ventured into the forests to collect firewood or sal leaves or mahua, seven when they went to relieve themselves, another seven during village raids by a herd, three during raids on farms, and three in cashew plantations, data put together by an NGO, Wildlife Society of Odisha, shows.

Chhabindra Kumar Pradhan, from Sanakantakula village in Angul district, said elephants have turned to mango and jackfruit plantations with the depletion of palm trees. “The elephants used to consume palm fruit which was their prime source of food in June and July. But those trees are disappearing from our forests because of massive felling . Through Dhenkanal and Angul, I have seen thousands of palm trees chopped off, lying by the side of the road, waiting for organised timber traders. With no palm fruit available, the elephants now want jackfruit, bael(stone apple) and mango which villagers grow and eat,” Pradhan said.

In Badakuntakala in Angul district, one of those still in mourning is Ishwar Pradhan, a marginal farmer, who ironically was appointed a “Gajasathi”(friend of the elephants) by the state forest department earlier this year, with the mandate that he keep an eye out for them and alert the village if they arrive (he was paid ₹1,000 a month). But on April 24, when he was away at the wedding of a relative, and his 45-year-old wife Muli Pradhan, went to the nearby mango orchards along with another woman. “They were caught unawares by a tusker that trampled both of them to death. Even after they were both dead, for a long time, the elephant did not allow villagers to go near the bodies,” Chhabindra Kumar Pradhan said.

It’s the same story everywhere. In Durdurkote in Dhenkanal district, 65-year-old Agari Majhi went to her paddy farm with her friend Puti Samal on March 30. They ventured briefly into the forests nearby to collect mahua. By 9.30 in the morning, they were both dead. In Keonjhar’s Kaliapani, 12 tribal families left the village forever, bag and baggage, after their homes were destroyed multiple times by elephants over several weeks.

Wildlife conservationist Belinda Wright of the Wildlife Protection Society of India, an NGO, said an elephant spends between 16 and 20 hours a day gathering food. “But with their habitat under threat, they are coming out to the edge of forests where human habitations have grown. In agricultural lands, the elephants get a substantial quantity of nutritious food with minimal effort. They are also spending more time in areas that grow more than one crop a year resulting in higher number of man-elephant encounters,” said Wright.

The way forwardChanchal Kumar Sar, a retired biologist who has worked for the Odisha government on the human-elephant conflict, said there are no quick-fix solutions. “What you are seeing is the festering wound that has been left untreated for years altogether. Elephants need corridors to migrate from one forest to another and those need to be restored. And they are now more aggressive as their current habitat does not have enough fodder . We need to allow them unhindered access,” said Sar.

SK Popli, Odisha’s chief wildlife warden said that the department has taken up several measures including the introduction in 2022 of Gajasathis, a scheme where local volunteers are trained by forest officials to help mitigate the conflict. “More than 5,400 volunteers have been engaged in 1,177 villages. We have also rolled out the ‘Jana Surakhya Gaja Rakshya’ scheme under which solar fencing is done around villages with 90% of the cost borne by the state.” Solar fencing includes wires powered by solar panels that carry electricity that give non lethal shocks to intruders, creating a deterrent. Even if an animal is trapped in the fence, 10 consecutive shocks are given, after which the system trips, ensuring little chance of a fatality.

Senior forest department officials added that the state has been divided into four zones. Zone 1 is where the elephant population is high; Zone 2 is a coexistence zone; Zone 3 is where there is a raging conflict and where the administration will translocate herds or individual tuskers on a case by case basis out of them; Zone 4 is earmarked as no-go areas for elephants, and any wild animal straying into this zone will be captured and translocated. “The long-pending issue of elephant corridors will be resolved by June 2024,” said Popli.

Lala Aswini Kumar Singh, a former wildlife researcher in the state forest department, who co-authored a book Elephant Movement and Its Impacts: Conservation Management in Odisha, said that in the short term, the government must focus on life style changes in conflict zones. “As mahua attracts wild elephants, people should be advised against storing it inside their homes. The storage of harvested grains on the ground also emits a smell that attracts elephants. Solar fencing around affected villages needs to be taken up on a war footing,” Singh said.

Wildlife conservationist Mohanty said that 44 of the 57 deaths between April and June came from tuskers, often loners that are usually more aggressive. He said, “One idea is to radio collar them for better monitoring. Palm tree felling has to be stopped, and to allow the elephants to pass through canals like the Rengali canal, wide overpasses that can accommodate more than a dozen elephants at a time need to be built. The night movement of trucks needs to be stopped to give elephants a breather, and reduce stress. The solutions are not that difficult. But will they act?”

The consequences of inaction, for people like Saheb Rout, are clear. Death pacing at the door.