CHATTOGRAM — Wild elephants have been descending from the hills into Chakaria upazila in Cox’s Bazar for the past week in search of food, leaving farmers anxious about losing their ripe boro paddy. The animals roam sometimes in herds and sometimes alone, entering populated areas and trampling fields.
A stray wild elephant entered the Mainjpara area east of Dulahazara on Saturday around 4 p.m., but residents drove it away before it could damage any paddy.
Local residents said that every year during the boro harvesting season, wild elephants come down from the hills into the hilly areas of Pahariya, Surajpur, Manikpur, Dulahazara, Phansiakhali, Baraitali and Harbang unions of Chakaria upazila. The elephants trample and eat the ripe paddy. Farmers stay up through the night guarding their crops, and elephant attacks have killed several farmers in various locations.
Farmers, in turn, have built barbed-wire fences around their fields and electrified them to keep the elephants away. Several elephants have been killed by these methods, and farmers have also died after becoming entangled in the electrified wires.
In neighboring Bandarban hill district, illegal traders in Lama and Alikadam upazilas have been cutting forest trees to use as fuel in brick kilns, experts said. With the help of forest department staff, they have been destroying forests unchecked, depriving wild elephants of their habitat. The lack of a suitable living environment and shortage of food in the forest is driving the elephants into populated areas, the experts said.
Mohammad Shah Alam, a local journalist in Dulahazara, said a stray wild elephant entered the Mainjpara area east of Dulahazara on Saturday around 4 p.m. Local residents drove it away using various methods, and the elephant caused little damage to the area, he said.
বাংলায় মূল প্রতিবেদন পড়ুন · Read the original Bengali report