Elephants & Tigers Kill One Person Everyday In India As Humans Continue To Encroach Jungles
The ministry said 345 tigers and 84 elephants were killed in the same period, mostly in poacher attacks.
Endangered elephants and tigers are killing one person each day in the country as man-animal conflict is on the rise. The toll is also rising as humans are increasingly squeezing their habitat.
The figures presented by the parliament reveals that man is, in turn, killing a leopard a day as the man-animal tussle for space reaches new heights.
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India has lost vast swathes of forests to urbanisation in recent decades, forcing animals into human-occupied zones.
As per the environment ministry, 1,144 people were killed in attacks across the country in 1,143 days between April 2014 and May this year. And there is no sign of the number of deaths being cut.
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The ministry said 345 tigers and 84 elephants were killed in the same period, mostly in poacher attacks. Elephants are targeted for their tusks. Siddhanta Das, the ministry's director general of forests, said human encroachment into animal territory was causing the deaths.
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"We are running awareness campaigns to minimise the casualties," Das told AFP.
Elephants accounted for 1,052 human deaths and tigers 92, according to the figures released to Parliament last week. West Bengal state accounted for more than a quarter of deaths. The eastern has nearly 800 elephants and is also home to famed Bengal tigers.
