NEW DELHI
\nA team of 100 forest and wildlife officers is on the hunt for a wild elephant that has killed at least 20 people in a days-long rampage in eastern India, officials said on Wednesday.
\nThe elephant attacks have been taking place since early January in the Chaibasa and Kolhan forest areas of West Singhbhum district in Jharkhand state, which is also home to the Singhbhum Elephant Reserve.
\n\u201cTwenty people have lost their lives,\u201d Aditya Narayan, divisional forest officer, Chaibasa, told Arab News. \u201cThis is unusual … we have put the entire area on alert and asked the villagers not to step out unnecessarily. This is an alarming situation.\u201d
\nSmitha Pankaj, chief forest conservator in the Singhbhum area, said the animal has not been sighted yet but it has been established that it is a bull in musth \u2014 a period of heightened testosterone and a known factor in aggressive behavior.
\n\u201cThis attack has happened when the testosterone level of elephants is at its peak. Besides that, people have also been agitating the elephant,\u201d she said.
\n\u201cI feel that it has crossed the Jharkhand border … our team consisting of over 100 people is monitoring the situation.\u201d
\nThe rampage took place as human activity leads to the shrinking of the natural habitat of elephants. Settlements are encroaching on areas that once served as seasonal movement routes for elephant herds.
\nRishikesh Singhdev, a forest rights activist, also attributed the attacks to deforestation and insufficient efforts to preserve the elephant population.
\n\u201cIn 2005, the government gave land to humans in the forests and, as a result, the human population in the jungle kept on increasing. It is believed that elephants do their movement on the route that their ancestors have walked. Elephants have killed people who fell on this route,\u201d he said.
\n\u201cElephant food habitats have disappeared. This is the first elephant reserve forest in India, but no attempt is being made to preserve and secure the elephants.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
NEW DELHI A team of 100 forest and wildlife officers is on the hunt for a wild elephant that has killed at least 20 people in a days-long rampage in eastern India, officials said on Wednesday. The elephant attacks have been taking place since early January in the Chaibasa and Kolhan forest areas of West […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":525682,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-525666","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"yoast_head":"\n