Elephants Breaking Fences
Elephants Breaking Fences
Electric fences, with an electric current (1 Hz), are being
erected, for some time now, around forests and National Wildlife Parks where
wild elephants live. They are made by joining wooden posts with metal wires.
There is no danger whatever to life by this amount of electricity and the aim
of erecting these electric fences is to prevent elephants crossing them. And
also the same objective is achieved by cutting deep trenches at some places.
There are human abodes, cultivations and industries beyond
these fences. When there is shortage of food for the elephants in areas in
which they live and there are crops which they like grown in the farmlands
beyond the elephant fences, they try to get in to the cultivations by
demolishing the electric fences. Sometime their attempts are successful.
The main method used by the elephants to break the fences is
to bring fairly large dry tree log from within the forest and place it on the
fence to lower it. While one elephant presses it to the ground, others in the
herd walk across. This is done in the night. They go in to villages, destroy
cultivations and houses and feed on the food they like such as crops, stored
paddy (rice) and salt. They go back in to the forest before sunrise lowering
the fence as before unless they lose their way.
Here the most interesting fact is that when the elephants
return to the forest the oldest elephant who is the leader of the herd takes
the log used to lower the fence back in to the forest and hides it in the
forest. It is done to use that log, that worked before, when breaking in to the
village again. The electric fence gets destroyed when it is lower by putting the
logs on it like this. If not it is lowered again by using the log. If the log
has been misplaced another log will be brought and used when coming again.
Sometimes adult lone elephants also use this method and walk
across the fence. Although very rare, another method is also used by lone
elephants. That is breaking the fence and jump across in spite of the
electricity. Elephants, breaking fences and jumping over them were reported
from Sigiriya a few years back. Further there are reports of elephants getting
in to villages swimming across reservoirs.
Next installment – A Short Introduction on Sri Lankan
Elephants.
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