News
More officers, apps and vehicles to address human elephant conflict
View(s):By Damith Wickramasekara
Environment Minister Dammika Patabendi told the Sunday Times that the infrastructure of the wildlife department will be improved and more staff will be hired to address the human elephant conflict.
According to him, 84 single cabs, 16 double cabs as well as 181 motorbikes would be bought to improve protection and monitoring of wild animals and also to stop wildlife crime.
Already 3,500 civil defense officers are assigned to maintain fences to deter elephant intrusions and the ministry hopes to increase this number to 5000.
Apart from that, the ministry will hire 500 forest officers.
An elephant killed in a retaliatory attack and below a house damaged in an elephat attack
The minister said that elephants and other wildlife dwell in forests and that habitat and animals need to be protected.
The DWC had also identified that 19 out of 25 districts have human elephant conflicts. The plan is to create 19 separate WhatsApp hotlines for each district so the area wildlife officers could receive complaints and immediately intervene.
Once all hotlines are linked the DWC could monitor 19 districts, Mr Patabendi said.
There are only 12 veterinary surgeons at the DWC who can treat elephants. There are plans to recruit more. They also plan to provide more treatment units to treat elephants injured due to human activities.
He said that they had already radio collared of two tuskers who frequently move with the largest wild tusker “Kavanthissa’’, to track and monitor them. Police special task force officers have been deployed to ensure their safety.
The Sunday Times has learns that the report of the 2024 elephant survey would soon be handed over to the minister.
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