India Needs to Find Ways to Save Elephants Dying due to Train hits

According to the CAG report, 61 elephants died due to collisions with trains between 2016 to 2019. This was just one report: nearly 186 elephants have been reported to have been killed due to collisions with trains.  Recently many elephant deaths have been reported from Assam, West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Uttarakhand, and many other hilly states due to train hits. Speeding trains at night has become a major problem for the regions where there is a large elephant population. 

Reasons for increasing elephant deaths

Human beings are the major reason that these jumbos have to travel long distances. Elephants walk somewhere around 50-60 km within a few days. They love to travel long distances in a group. But the forest regions have reduced due to human encroachment. Fragmentation of forests, cutting down the trees, and clearing of forests for slash and burn agriculture. These have become major reasons for reducing forests. Hence, elephants are left with no choice but to cross the railway tracks to travel from one forest to another.

Ways to reduce elephant deaths 

The government has used various methods from putting sensors, clearing vegetation on the sides of the track within railway land, putting boards to warn locomotives, etc. Even after taking all required precautions still, these cases are rising in hilly regions. The issue is that elephants have 6 toes, one specifically for gripping the slope.  Due to this reason, they take more time while descend the slopes. This makes them more vulnerable to train accidents. 

When the questions were raised in parliament about steps taken to deal with such situations. The government said that it had put in place measures such as providing fencing and erecting signage to warn locomotive pilots about identified elephant corridors. Other measures included sensitizing train crew and station masters regularly, deputing a forest department staff in railway control offices to liaison with railways. The Forest department will also engage elephant trackers for timely action by alerting station masters and locomotive pilots.