It’s a no-contest. In the game of survival between man and animal, man is the clear winner. Losing out on life are hordes of bisons, elephants and leopards, which have strayed into human settlements for want of forested areas and food in the north and north-western Bengal. So while the past few years have seen frequent instances of elephants wreaking havoc in villages, bisons invading human territories or leopards straying into tea gardens, causing destruction to life and property, more often than not, it’s perpetrators which have turned victims.

On March 4, for instance, a bison was killed by a mob after it strayed out of the Buxa forest area. The animal injured one person and gored to death four cows near Birpara village close to Alipurduar town. For the bisons, it is a clear case of figures gone awry.

Enlisted as a protected species under Schedule One of the Wildlife (Protection) Act 1972, the bison count at both the Jaldapara Wildlife Sanctuary and the Gorumara National Park is far more than the protected areas can hold. In Jaldapara, the bisons number 1,000, almost double the desired capacity, while Gorumara has 2,000 bisons. Besides, the erratic floods have dried up wallow pools and watering holes in Jaldapara. “So the animals tend to stray into the fringes in search of water,” says M.C. Biswas, district forest officer, Jaldapara.

Meanwhile, north Bengal, which has fewer than 300 elephants (around one per cent of the human population in India), has an extraordinarily high human-elephant conflict rate. According to a report in Right of Passage, the Wildlife Trust of India publication, “There are 697 recorded cases of loss of human life in a 15 year period between 1986-87 and 2000-01, a statistic that translates into an average of more than 47 human lives per year.”

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