KAZIRANGA, Oct 27 - In view of the frequent conflicts between tigers and cattle and livestock in fringe villages of Kaziranga National Park, the Kaziranga forest department in association with �The Corbett Foundation� has come up with an innovative system of protecting cattle sheds by covering it with branded hard barbed fence wire to keep predators away. The big cats can easily break away walls of cattle sheds without much effort because of their immense body strength.
When this correspondent visited Bagori village recently, near the western range office of Kaziranga National Park, fringe villagers informed that there had been frequent movements of an adult Royal Bengal Tiger in their village which was a few yards away from the foothills of Karbi Anglong and is considered to be a tiger movement area. A small stream passing through the village is the boundary point which separates Nagaon district from Karbi Anglong. �But wild big cats while coming out from Kaziranga National Park, do not understand any civil boundary and always move towards our villages in search of food.�
�The Royal Bengal Tiger is very clever and very successfully catches its prey (cattle) and moves away without any knowledge of the owners,� said Hira Goswami, a member of the VDP of Bagori village.
He added that now with the help of logistical support provided by The Corbett Foundation, cattle could be safely kept in their sheds as the hard barbed wire fencing covering the cattle shed will help in keeping the big cats away from attacking its prey.
Divisional Forest Officer of Kaziranga Ramesh Gogoi said there had been a lot of problems earlier as the Royal Bengal Tigers often attacked two to three cows in a single day. He said since the area is a tiger movement range, the big cats move out of from Kaziranga National Park and proceed towards the foothills of Karbi Anglong by passing through villages, so it was not easy to tranquillise the wild cat. Gogoi said now with the new initiative taken by The Corbett Foundation, the conflict between domestic and wild animals will get reduced to a great extent.
Dr Navin Pandey, Deputy Director of The Corbett Foundation said there was a target for covering 70 cattle sheds with hard barbed fence wire and till today work on 63 cattle sheds had been completed. He said there was no specified length or breadth of the barbed wire fencing.
He said �if any body needs a requisite length or breadth of barbed wire fencing to cover up their cattle sheds having more number of domestic cattle, we go by it and help them in covering the entire shed with the hard barbed wire.�
The beneficiaries were selected after completing a survey to determine the most affected households who were economically poor said Dr Pandey.
There was community participation while covering the cattle sheds with hard barbed fence wire as fringe villagers arrange bamboo pieces by themselves to be fitted along with the fence wire.
Another villager informed that the initiative has yielded good results as now they could sleep properly without any fear of the big cats.
Dr Pandey said these type of measures will help in the conservation of wildlife as well as human property and make co-existence of man and wild animals feasible.
