Jharkhand To Use "Jumbo Hooters" To Scare Away Elephants From Villages

Amid increased instances of elephants wreaking havoc in Jharkhand, trampling villagers to death and destroying crops and property, the Saranda Forest Division authorities decided to take resort to "Jumbo Hooters" that will scare the intruding animals away with a combination light and sound, an official said on Monday.

The "Jumbo Hooter" - Animal Intrusion Detection and Repellent System (ANIDERS) - is a solar-powered machine, the sensors of which can distinguish between animals and humans and raise an alarm on detecting elephants within its range, alerting the people nearby.

ANIDERS is being installed at 18 villages affected by elephant attacks in the Saranda region in the first phase as a pilot project, Divisional Forest Officer (DFO) of Saranda, Chandramauli Prasad Sinha, said.

The machine's built-in camera will record the activities of the elephants and send the footage to forest officials, alerting them too.

The success rate of the machines is stated to be 86 per cent as per research conducted by World Wide Fund for Nature in India, the official said.

The state forest department has approved the plan and the expenses incurred would be borne by Tata Steel Long Products Limited, Mr Sinha said.

If the project is successful, it will be replicated elsewhere, he said.

ANIDERS is in use in states such as Kerala, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Assam, Karnataka, Uttarakhand and Tamil Nadu, according to the firm which is installing the machine in Jharkhand.

Several people get killed in elephant attacks in the state every year.

Last week, four people were trampled to death in Giridih district by elephants, while pachyderms killed another four in neighbouring areas, including Hazaribag, besides injuring more than 20 people.