Environmental Engineering Reference
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Figure 4.2
Naughty macaques and langurs
Poaching elephants for ivory, rhinos for horns, large carnivores for skin, teeth and other body parts
is not uncommon. However, again, for this purpose fi rearms are more commonly used rather than
poisoning, mainly because instantaneous death is preferable so that the poachers can quickly collect
the valuable body parts and make good their escape. Poisons used for this purpose need to be highly
toxic, and carbofuran is potentially one good choice in this sense. However, no cases of carbofuran
having been used for poaching have been recorded so far.
Table 4.1 presents the number of livestock, the human population and the type of confl icts present
in and around different Tiger Reserves in India, as provided by Project Tiger, Government of India
(http://Project tiger.nic.in).
Thus, the major human-wildlife confl icts affl icting different parts of India are:
•
crop raiding by elephants, wild boars, other wild herbivores and monkeys;
•
predation on cattle (and humans/accidents involving humans) by carnivores such as leopards,
bears, wild dogs and tigers;
•
damage to grains by birds such as the peacock.
The IUCN categorisation for these animals is presented in Table 4.2.
Most of the cattle maintained in the Nilgiris are Friesian crossbreds. In our experience, the ani-
mals preyed upon by tigers or leopards are healthy and often pregnant heifers in their prime age.
Similarly, a recent survey (authors' own data) of Toda tribes in different villages revealed that preda-
tors posed the greatest threat to their buffaloes. Likewise, several animals that had been lost to
predation were pregnant. Such losses create a negative attitude towards carnivores. Humans will
then go to any extent in order to get rid of them. Several studies (see Table 4.3) have estimated that
the economic loss caused by human-animal confl icts lies in the tens of millions of rupees (equivalent
of approximately 225K USD).
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