Manas National Park, 7 May 2020: An effective solution to mitigate human elephant conflict was successfully tested and shows promise in Manas. Wildlife Trust of India’s team had installed 5 km of hanging fence along the Manas National Park boundary to keep elephants out of human inhabited areas.

Conventional fences to keep wildlife away from farmlands and human habitation are easily crossed over by elephant herds. The maintenance cost is also higher in these fences as they get repeatedly taken down by elephants that topple conventional fence posts.

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Hanging fences are a novel concept in human – elephant conflict management and have been used in Sri Lanka and also recently in southern India with promising results. The major advantage of these fences are that they are much higher than conventional fences (14 ft) and are also electrically charged (solar) to give a mild shock to the pachyderms who learn and adapt to avoid interactions with the fences. These fences hang like a curtain with a gap underneath for smaller animals to cross and cannot be toppled easily by force.

“I had seen them being successfully used in Mudumalai and Satyamangalam Tiger Reserves and suggested that they can be used in Manas too” mentioned Dr. Ramkumar (Manager, Wild Lands & Conflict Mitigation, WTI).

With the support of Chester Zoo under the Assam Haathi Project, our team at Manas facilitated upskilling of local community stakeholders for installation of these fences. “The Coimbatore based vendor who were fabricating hanging fences in South India were invited to Manas for installation of the first kilometre of this unique fence” added Dr. Ramkumar. WTI ensured that (six) key local community stakeholders were trained by this vendor over a month at Manas and four more kilometres have been added since then with materials procured from Guwahati the nearest city.

“Commencing in December, we finished installing a total of 5 km of fencing in the first addition of Manas National Park” added WTI field sociologist Brojo Basumatary. Brojo who is based in Manas had installed camera traps to monitor the efficacy of these fences (https://youtu.be/FFhXWSaBPJA) during the initial months of installation.

Initial reports from the local community and the Assam Forest Department have been encouraging with much reduced human – elephant conflicts recorded along this stretch. Basumatary feels the need of longer observation and monitoring of elephant behaviour since the installation of the fence combined with effective management strategies for a long term solution to address conflict.