Nagpur: Man-animal conflicts claimed 421 lives in Maharashtra during the last five years with most of the cases occurring in forest-rich areas of Vidarbha region. The region has five tiger reserves and many wildlife sanctuaries.
Data received from the PCCF (wildlife) office under the RTI Act by social activist Abhay Kolarkar shows that in 2022-23, the highest 111 persons died in tiger, leopard, and other wild animal attacks. This was an increase of 29 over the 82 persons who had lost their lives in wildlife attacks in 2020-21.
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Tuesday 21 Jan. 2025
Even though Maharashtra, Chandrapur district in particular, is infamous for high number of man-animal conflicts, last year’s figures show nearly a 50% drop in human deaths and livestock kill in such cases. However, from April 2023 to February 25, 2024, (11 months), 59 human deaths were recorded in the State.
Though crop damage compensation cases have almost doubled, there is a drop in cattle kills by big carnivores. Last year, 54,036 crop damage cases were recorded compared to 1.04 lakh cases in the current year.
A total of 12,517 animal kill cases were recorded last year. During the last 11 months, the number has dropped by one-third to 4,648. The data received under RTI is for six years from 2018-19 till 2023-2024.
According to the RTI activist Abhay Kolarkar, even though there is a drop in cases in the last 11 months, comparative study of the last six years’ data show there is an overall increase in man-animal conflict with spurt in human deaths and animal injuries, cattle kills, and crop damage cases. In 2018-19, the government paid Rs27.43 crore towards compensation but in 2023-24, it paid Rs 136.80 crore, nearly a five-fold jump, Kolarkar said.
In 2018-19, the number of human deaths and injuries was 36, and 299 cases respectively. It has shown a consistent rise over the next four years 2019-20 (47), 2020-21 (82), 2021-22 (86), 2022-23 (111) and dropped in 2023-2024 (59).
Wildlife conservationists attributed the spurt in conflict to an increase in tiger and leopard population in the last six years. As per the All India Tiger and Leopard Estimation (AITE)-2018, the tiger numbers have increased from 312 in 2018 to nearly 444 in 2022. During the same period leopard numbers have also increased from nearly 1,690 to 1,985.
According to Chandrapur conservationist and founder of NGO Eco-Pro, Bandu Dhotre, despite several measures like subsidized LPG distribution and solar fencing in place, exploitation of natural resources continues unabated, bringing people into conflict with wildlife, both directly and indirectly. Increasing human and wild animal populations have also led to more conflict cases. The drop in conflict may be temporary and may flare up once the season for tendu leaves extraction starts next month, he lamented.
