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Tuesday, May 29, 2018

An Essay on Elephanticide in India by Samriddho Sen


Elephanticide :

India’s ironic apathy towards its most culturally revered
mammal.

The following essay is presented in a paragraphic format –

1. Introduction: Elephants offer symbolic, religious and an antediluvian sense of
sociological appeal for India, often crucial to our evolved sense of cultural identity.
Motion picture, public media, traditional and even institutional tropes reflect our intimate
affinity with the mammal that has showcased long-recorded behavioral tendencies of
familial bonding, with often humanizing displays of parental affection, which is
poignantly emblematic and reflective of our own dispositions. It would not be an
overestimation of narrative rhetoric to state that the Elephant has been designated as
India’s National Heritage Animal. Perhaps the most cruel paradox lies in the fact that the
Indian Railways, led by its iconic mascot - the train manager “Bholu”, an Asian elephant
(Elephas Maximus), is domestically responsible for the largest number of train accidents
involving elephants in the world, with hundreds of an already dwindling endangered
species, killed over the course of the past two (2) decades. No other species of wild
animals have recorded identical statistical levels of unnatural death in single locomotive/
industrial incidents as do elephants due to almost regular collisions with oncoming trains.
Although these deaths are for the most part geographically limited to Central and Eastern India, it has been recorded that a striking number of thirty (30) elephants were 
killed by locomotive collisions between 2013 and 2017 in the state of WestBengal1. Additionally within a time span of 2004 to 2015, elephant fatalities were numbered at 65 from locomotive causations alone, according to the
estimations of environmentalists2. On a concluding note of contextual
perspective, five elephants encountered a similar fate in Assam in
December 2017, after suffering from a direct collision with an oncoming
train while the herd was crossing the railway track.3  One identifiable reason for
elephants dying en masse has been attributed to the collective psychology of the herd that produces effort to
save its distressed members from incoming danger. As India’s human population continues to
multiply exponentially over the past several decades, it is correlated with an expansion of
demands for subsistent resources, which essentially entails land, required for housing
construction and agricultural cultivation, as an element of an ecological landscape that is spatially encumbered by associated human industrial activities such as roadways, rail
corridors, mines and dams, which are intended to facilitate sociological performance and
per capital economic productivity at the steep cost of a consistently degenerating local
biosphere. The aforementioned “linear infrastructures”, restrict the movement of wildlife populations by
fragmenting their habitat, increasing edge effects, constricting ecological corridors, inhibiting animal
movement and increasing the risk of mortality due to direct collisions with motorized or locomotive
vehicles.4 These processes not only inhibit habitat connectivity within a landscape, which is required for
spatial dispersal and re-colonization, essential for maintaining regional metapopulations and minimizing
risks of inbreeding within populations5, but additionally hinders the persistence of species in humandominated
landscapes, as isolated and diminutive populations are more vulnerable to extinction from
stochastic demographic processes and loss of genetic variation.6



2. As per the most recent estimates, India has the largest number of wild Asian
elephants in the world, estimated at 27,312 according to the 2017 census7,
which roughly accounts for 55% of the species’ global population. They subsist across 29
Elephant Reserves spread over 10 elephant landscapes in 14 states, spanning 65,814 sq
kms of forests in the northeast, central, north-west and south India. However, contrary to
public knowledge and belief, Elephant Reserves in India are not legally protected habitats,
which ensures protection of its inhabitants from any external human interference.
Elephant Reserves for the most part are inclusive of areas of human use and habitation.
This results in Elephant Reserves being overwhelmingly vulnerable and susceptible to
unregulated human encroachment and unlawful poaching or hunting.


3. At the existing scale of industrialization and its longstanding ramifications on the
adjoining biosphere, India faces a grave concern of train-wildlife collisions. The primary
perpetrator and cause of such a foreboding crises is the Indian Railways (IR). With its
ironic Asian elephant mascot, it is one of the world’s largest railway networks, comprising
115,000 kms of tracks over a route of approximately 65,000 km and 7500 stations.8 In
2015-1016, the Indian Railways was credited with transporting more than 22,000,000
passengers and 3,000,000 tons of freight on a daily basis.9 Furthermore, the Indian
Railway network spans and cuts across a multitude of forested landscapes, and its
consequent impacts on the local wildlife and the ecosystem at large has remained a matter
of increasing concern among environmental scientists and activists alike. In order to cope
up with and address the increasing logistical requirements of a progressively
industrializing landscape and demands of a modernizing and expanding society, the
direct and indirect impacts of the airways have exacerbated over the years with the
expansion of the rail network, gauge conversion, and locomotive velocity and frequency.
Locomotive-elephant collisions, owing to their common occurrence, have become
normalized along certain rail corridors which traverse through elephant sanctuaries, such
as the Siliguri-Alipurduar Line in Northern West Bengal10, Guwahati-Lumding Line inAssam and Meghalaya , Haridwar-Dehradun 11 Line in Uttarakhand12, Coimbatore-
Thrissur Line in Tamil Nadu and Kerala13.


4. To effectively convey the extent of elephant fatalities caused by locomotives and the sheer number of
accidents involving elephants along the aforesaid rail corridors, 18 elephant deaths were recorded at Rajaji
National Park, Uttarakhand, between 1987 and 200114, 35 deaths in Assam from 1987 to 200615,
16 in Odisha16 and 13 elephant deaths in Tamil Nadu between 2002 and 201317.


5. Remedial initiatives undertaken by institutional agencies include the National Board of
Wildlife’s recent propositional announcement of funding a mitigation plan for all projects
in sanctuaries, national parks and eco-sensitive zones, to restrict wildlife mortality
resulting from linear infrastructural projects such as road and rail corridors.18 However,
what is required is to identify and enact mitigation measures in all conflict hotspots,
without being limited to just proximate protected areas. A letter drafted in February 2018
by the Sanctuary Nature Foundation to Piyush Goyal, the Union Railway Minister, states,
“Elephants are impacted in the East-Central India belt of Odisha, Jharkhand and
Chhattisgarh because of devastation of elephant habitat and corridors by iron ore and coal mining and industrial development.” As a mitigation 19 measure, the letter
recommends leveling steep mounds adjacent to railway lines, which may act as probable
hindrance to any escape attempt and clearing forest vegetation, adjoining the railway line
for enabling drivers to observe and notice the movement of elephants. There is conclusive
evidence to support that methodological mitigation can effectively work. It’s nature can be
deducible at two particular forms –

5.1. Built mitigation - Entailing underpasses or tunnels which facilitate the unhindered and
unrestricted movement of wild-life in human interspersed biomes and,
5.2. Preventive mitigation - Conduction of patrolling and clearing patrol routes.


Case study reference - A railway line passing through Rajaji National Park in
Uttarakhand had recorded multiple incidents of mass elephant fatalities, which was
halted with the implementation and installment for basic passage and mitigation
measures.20 These remedial measures included the erection of warning signs, sanctioning
of strolling teams for elephants, moderation of steep embankments and clearing of
adjoining vegetation along the railway tracks.


6. The next step in identifying the causality and determining the remedial mitigation, is
geographically and conclusively ascertaining the mortality hotspots. Identifying mortality
hotspots is a critical indicator of areas where elephant habitats are interspersed with highspeed
rail corridors. A study published in 2017 noted that “broad gauge allows traits to
reach higher velocities, making it harder for elephants to avoid a moving train”, and that,
after gauge conversions, the maximum speed of trains increased from 60 kmph to 100
kmph”. In addition to the hotspots, the study observed upon that most accidents occur at
night, suggesting that limiting train operation after sunset and constructing underpasses
or tunnels for reducing restrictions in wildlife crossing could reduce casualties in the
area.217. In light of the current situation involving the need to conserve ecological life and
resources, and to restrict unwarranted human encroachment into biomes and ecological
habitats, the real danger lies in elephant passageways situated outside the protected areas.
The Supreme Court as a part of an ongoing PIL (Public Interest Litigation) has directed the Centre to find
a solution to reduce elephant deaths in designated corridors. “We cannot tell the elephants where they
should go....they must have a corridor,” an apex court bench of Justice Madan B. Lokur and Justice
Deepak Gupta has observed on 6th of April, 2018, with Add. Solicitor General A.N.S Nadkarni
representing the Central Government.22


8. Conclusion: Elephants are considered as a keystone species. Their nomadic behavior
involving daily and seasonal migrations across different home ranges is of the utmost
consequence to the local environment. A few of the many ways elephants contribute to
the environment are:

8.1. Elephants eliminate vegetative overgrowth by clearing forests as they migrate,
allowing the regeneration of new plant species on which herbivores subsist on.
8.2. Elephants consume plants, fruits and seeds, and through open defecation, contribute
to distribution of various plant species, through seed dispersal mechanisms which
benefits the local biodiversity.
8.3. Elephant dung acts as a source of nutrition to animals and nourishment to plants
8.4. Elephants provide water under the circumstances of drought, by digging holes,
therefore benefitting other wildlife.
8.5. Elephant carcasses provide source of nourishment for other animals and offers
regenerative flaura and fauna growth after decomposition.

Therefore to have elephants confined to isolated populations, restricted from freely moving
through their home ranges and within their own habitats by unregulated human activities, will
have devastating repercussions on India’s natural heritage. The absence of elephants would
unalterably destabilize the existing ecological structure, with its severe ramifications faced by not
just the local wildlife, but also ourselves.


References:

1. 30 elephants killed by trains in West Bengal in 5 yrs, no action against staff: Gohain, Indian Express Report, PTI
Report, January 5th, 2018.



2. Speeding Train Plows Into Elephants in India, Killing 5 Animals, By Jeffrey Gettleman, Suhasini Raj and Kai
Schultz, NYT, Feb. 12, 2018


3 Five elephants killed by train in India, December 11, 2017;


4 Forman, R. T. T., & Deblinger, R. D. (2000). The ecological road-effect zone of a Massachusetts (USA) suburban
highway. Conservation Biology, 14, 36–46; Trombulak, S. C., & Frissell, C. A. (2000). Review of ecological effects of
roads on terrestrial and aquatic communities. Conservation Biology, 14, 18–30.

5 Newmark, W. (1987). A land–bridge island perspective on mammalian extinctions in western American parks.
Nature, 325, 430–432; Wilcove, D. S., Rothstrin, D., Dubow, J., Philips, A., & Locos, E. (1998). Quantifying threats to
imperiled species in the United States. BioScience, 48, 607–615.

6 Soule, M. E., & Wilcox, B. A. (Eds.). (1980). Conservation biology: An evolutionary-ecological perspective.
Sunderland, MA: Sinauer.


8 Indian Railways. (2014). Statistical summary—Indian railways. Retrieved November 05, 2016, from -
http://indianrailways.gov.in/railwayboard/uploads/directorate/stat_econ/IRSP_201314/pdf/
Statistical_Summary/Summary%20Sheet_Eng.pdf

9 Government of India. (2015). Indian railways lifeline of the nation (A White Paper) February 2015, Ministry of
Railways New Delhi.

10 Roy, M., Baskaran, N., & Sukumar, R. (2009). The death of jumbos on railway lines in northern West Bengal.
Gajah, 31, 36–39.

11Sarma, U. K., Easa, P. S., & Menon, V. (2006). Deadly lines: A scientific approach to understanding and mitigating
elephant mortality due to train hits in Assam (Occasional Report no. 24). New Delhi: Wildlife Trust of India.

12 Singh, A. K., Kumar, A., Mookerjee, A., & Menon, V. (2001). Jumbo express: A scientific approach to
understanding and mitigating elephant mortality due to train accidents in Rajaji National Park (Occasional Report
no. 3). New Delhi: Wildlife Trust of India
.
13 Jha, N., Sarma, K., & Bhattacharya, P. (2014). Assessment of elephant (Elephas maximus) mortality along Palakkad–
Coimbatore railway stretch of Kerala and Tamil Nadu using Geospatial Technology. Journal of Biodiversity Management
& Forestry, 3, 1–7.

14 Singh, A. K., Kumar, A., Mookerjee, A., & Menon, V. (2001). Jumbo express: A scientific approach to
understanding and mitigating elephant mortality due to train accidents in Rajaji National Park (Occasional Report
no. 3). New Delhi: Wildlife Trust of India.

15 Sarma, U. K., Easa, P. S., & Menon, V. (2006). Deadly lines: A scientific approach to understanding and mitigating
elephant mortality due to train hits in Assam (Occasional Report no. 24). New Delhi: Wildlife Trust of India.

16 Palai, N. C., Bhakta, P. R., & Kar, C. S. (2013). Death of elephants due to railway accidents in Odisha, India.
Gajah, 38, 39–41.

17 Jha, N., Sarma, K., & Bhattacharya, P. (2014). Assessment of elephant (Elephas maximus) mortality along Palakkad–
Coimbatore railway stretch of Kerala and Tamil Nadu using Geospatial Technology. Journal of Biodiversity Management
& Forestry, 3, 1–7.

18 Animal passage plan mandatory now for infrastructural projects, Nidhi Sharma, ET Bureau; Feb. 10, 2018.

https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/economy/policy/animal-passage-plan-mandatory-now-forinfrastructure-
projects/articleshow/62858155.cms

19http://www.sanctuaryasia.com/conservation/news/10770-wildlife-organisations-in-a-joint-letter-implore-therailway-
minister-to-act-on-the-rise-in-elephant-deaths-by-train-collisions

20 Safe passage for Elephants in Rajaji, By Prerna Singh Bindra, Conservation India; January 19th, 2011.

21 Railways and Wildlife: A Case Study of Train-Elephant Collisions in Northern West Bengal, India; Mukti Roy
and Raman Sukumar, Springer Publications;

22 A Rangarajan & Ors v. Union of India & Ors.



- Samriddho Sen,


Department of Law, University of Calcutta,






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