Maharashtra: Human-Wildlife conflict in urban area of Chandrapur on rise

By Saurabh Joshi
Chandrapur (Maharashtra) [India], May 17 (ANI): The ongoing conflict between humans and wildlife animals in the urban area of Chandrapur has reached a worrying state. In the last three years, 14 people were killed while two persons were badly injured in leopard attacks.
The growing rate of tigers and leopards and their entry towards residential settlements are becoming a cause of concern in the town.
According to an estimate, the number of adult tigers in the district has crossed 200 and the number is further increasing. The initial area of Tadoba National Park was 116.55 km.

Despite the continuous expansion of the forest area, it is falling short for wildlife animals.
The area of Durgapur’s Western Coalfield Limited (WCL) coal mines and the thermal power station has become the new habitat of leopards.
Earlier on May 1, 47-year-old Geeta Meshram, a resident of Durgapur village, around eleven o’clock at the night, while Geeta was filling water in her courtyard, the leopard suddenly attacked her and killed her.
While on the night of May 10, Jyoti Kopalwar’s 3-year-old daughter was badly injured due to a leopard attack.
Chandrapur Forest Division District Forest Officer (DFO), Prashant Khade said, “There is a big challenge in front of us, we are running the operation to catch the leopards, this operation has been intensified after two recent incidents, as soon as the news of the leopard movement was received, the forest department teams immediately acted.”
“Our regional staff continues with patrolling and we have 24*7 trap camera surveillance. The conflict is in a non-forest area due to which our regional staff, which is trained for working in forests, is facing problems,” he added. (ANI)