People’s Perception On Human-Elephant Conflicts In Gudalur Forest Division, Tamilnadu

Human-Elephant Conflict (HEC) becomes a serious issue in all elephant ranges. The elephant population is building up when compared to past few decades due various management implications made by the Tamil Nadu Forest Department. Thus resulted various human-elephant conflict issues such as human injuries and deaths, loss of properties and crops and deaths of elephants, etc. During such forays, managing elephant population is purely depending on local people as they lives many years. Hence, considering the importance, this short term study was attempted in order to understand people’s mind set on elephant conservation in the Gudalur Forest Division. This study was carried from January to March 2013 and the objectives of the project were a) To estimate socio-economic status of local people, b) To understand mind set of the local people elephant and its conservation Problems, c) To record solution to mitigate human-elephant conflict issues, d) To document various mitigating measures used by the local people against human-elephant conflicts.Questionnaire surveywas used to identify various humanelephant conflict mitigating measures displayed by the local people. 200 people were interviewed during the present investigation. The questionnaire was designed to evaluate factor such as frequency of elephant visits, and data was collected from various agricultural field persons (n=200) including children’s and parents. The questionnaire survey method was done in 16 villages was covered namely to Bennai (n=17), Pitharkaadu (n=16), Silver cloud estate, Oovelly and Paadanthorai (n=15), Dhevalai, (n=16), Moolakadu estate (n=10), Yellamalai estate (n=18), Neermattam, Erumaadu (n=10) (2×10=20), Keel Naadukani (n=16), Soondy, Gandhinagar, Cherampady (n=7) (3×7=21), Kolapalli (n=15), Naadukani (n=8). Variables such as name, occupation, years of living data were collected.Most of the people (n=110) opined that the elephant visits were became high in the past 5 years. 121 people were told that all the visits were made by the elephants only during night times.