Bengal Post, 24 July, 2010
So you thought you had had enough of elephant jokes? After all, it is almost 50 years since a few two-liners cropped up in Texas, triggering a cottage industry that soon had elite clients in the likes of Time magazine. And you thought it was impossible to milk those poor elephants for some fresh humour?
You underestimated our bureaucracy. An inspired bunch of officers have come up, perhaps unwittingly, with a brand new elephant joke that rivals the best in the long tradition in sheer incongruity.
The masterminds of Bengal forest department put their heads together with some do-gooders in Indian Railways and decided to construct several elephant underpasses and overbridges across the tracks between New Jalpaiguri and Alipurduar. If all goes according to plans, elephants, these officials want us to believe, will either burrow through these tunnels or climb the overpasses.
No doubt, this is a killer stretch that has claimed the lives of more than 30 elephants in the last 10 years. No doubt, the bureaucrats in question want to help the elephant and possibly also Indian Railways that suffers quite a bit of damage in such collisions. But good intention alone does not warranty a good solution.
Not too long back, the Supreme Court sought the view of the Wildlife Institute of India (WII) on the viability of constructing two elephant overpasses in Rajaji National Park where a national highway and a railway track must cut through the forest to keep Dehradun connected. When the amicus curie asked the WII chief if elephants would use the two proposed overpasses, he got a brief and simple answer: “Ask the elephants!”
Science is not astrology and scientists cannot compete with Paul, the octopus. Science seeks out future courses on the foundation of the past. In India, there has been no experiment with elephant overpasses yet and WII rightly refused to predict potential elephant behaviour. As a result, the apex court dumped the overpass plan and ordered construction of a 0.9 km elevated stretch (Motichur-Doiwala) of the highway so that the jumbos can walk freely on the forest floor. Work on this Rs 100 crore project is about to begin.Of course, animal passageways are not uncommon in the West. All over Europe, Canada and the US, hundreds of underpasses and overpasses help reduce animal roadkill. But there is a catch. Most of these passageways are beneficial to and, in fact, meant for amphibians, invertebrates, badgers, ungulates and other small mammals. Some of the biggest animals to benefit from such artificial access are the mountain goat (Montana), the mule deer, elk, moose (Nugget Canyon), the bighorn sheep (Colorado) and the panther (Florida). But the elephant?
The only instance of elephants occasionally taking an underpass is in South Africa's Kwazulu Natal province. Kenya is building an underpass spacious enough to allow three elephants side by side but the experiment is still on. In India, elephant bulls were spotted trudging through the Dogudda aqueduct – kind of an underpass -- but matriarchal herds stayed away due to traffic disturbance on the Chilla-Rishikesh road.
So what is the problem? Elephants need space and are not likely to enter tunnel-like underpasses. The width and height of a structure are key factors. The length is important, too. Anything more than 20 metres and the elephants might be too suspicious to venture in. Effective funneling is another critical issue as is the positioning of such underpasses since elephants stubbornly stick to their routes.
An overpass may work if it is built by joining two hillocks -- the road passes underneath -- in a way that the natural alignment appears intact. It should be wide enough and covered in natural vegetation. Any vibration due to traffic flow will be a major turn-off. Any attempt to make overbridge-like structures on flat land, expecting the jumbos to climb artificial slopes to cross roads, is rather pedestrian.
As of today, nobody has a clear idea as to how elephants will react to artificial passageways. Since elephants cannot be consulted, the Supreme Court was wise enough to shot down the proposals for Chilla overpass experiment in favour of an elevated road. The same logic holds good for a railway track.
But should we not encourage experiments? Of course, we should. But experiment does not mean randomly building tunnels and overbridges for elephants and then waiting to see if they are used. Instead, we should experiment to find the most viable solution to animal kills on highways and railroads and that is possible only by a series of thorough ground studies.
For example, a team of Wildlife Trust of India found out that speed is not actually the biggest threat to animals. They crunched case data around Rajaji National Park and discovered that most elephants were run over by trains at spots where either the locomotive was coming around a bend or the track was flanked by sharp slopes. Specific interventions based on this knowledge have drastically reduced elephant casualties in Rajaji and also saved the railways a lot of damage.
Each site has its unique dynamics and demands meticulous studies leading to site-specific, long-term solutions. Till then, stock measures like fixing speed limits – as has been recently done along NH-37 in Kaziranga – are welcome as temporary reprieve. But certainly not outlandish ideas like building a series of tunnels and flyovers and then blaming elephants for not using those.
If our babus really want to make an elephant fly, they can start with procuring a 3-feet zipper. But they need not try to untie an imaginary knot in a jumbo’s tail to make it pass through a needle. I know, elephant jokes are not always funny.
Mazoomdaar is a conservation journalist and filmmaker
No comments:
Post a Comment