A lone tusker has been terrorising the Koida range area of Odisha's Sundargarh district, entering homes and stealing food. At Rengalbeda Munda village, the elephant broke furniture and household items before picking…
The Story in Brief
A lone tusker has been terrorising the Koida range area of Odisha's Sundargarh district, entering homes and stealing food. At Rengalbeda Munda village, the elephant broke furniture and household items before picking up a bag of rice with its trunk and walking away. Villagers watched in amazement as the animal carried the sack through the streets.
This is not the first such incident. Days earlier, the same rogue tusker stopped vehicles on the road and took food from them. Forest officials say the animal has become habituated to human food. Villagers have demanded its capture and relocation, while forest department teams are trying to drive it back into deep forest.
The Indian Opinion
The easy narrative here is that a 'rogue' elephant is the problem, but the real issue is habitat loss pushing animals into settlements. Forest officials talk of driving the tusker back, yet it keeps returning because food is plentiful in villages. The concrete test will be whether the forest department installs deterrents like solar fences or trenches, or merely continues chasing the animal until someone gets hurt.
Source: odishatv.in
This story was synthesised by AI from the source linked above.
