Fatal Elephant Encounters on Humans in Bangladesh: Context and Incidences

Abstract

Here we report the context encounters of elephant attacks on humans in Bangladesh, during the period 1989 to 2012. Attack rates significantly increased over this study period. The proportion of encounters that caused deaths or injuries differed statistically significant between the two sexes (men more deaths), age groups (elder more deaths), time of the day (more deaths during night), place of casualty (more deaths outside forests), weapon used by elephants (more deaths when elephants were using both trunk and leg) and study sites. No difference was found between seasons, elephant group size, or financial status, occupation and household size of victims. Elephant family groups were mostly responsible for attacks in the north, while single bulls were more responsible in the southeast. The place of casualty (inside or outside forests), time of the day, gender and regions were all significant in explaining the variation in encounters which resulted in human deaths or injuries. Conflict mitigation approaches including incentive-, awareness-or training programs from the forest department could help to reduce the conflict between humans and elephants in Bangladesh.

Patterns and determinants of elephant attacks on humans in Nepal

“…A few individual bulls that repeatedly visited human settlements and agriculture areas were involved in the majority of the attacks. Similar findings of attacks on humans by solitary bulls are reported from some parts of Bangladesh (Sarker et al., 2015 ). In general, bulls range widely, operate solitarily or in small groups and young bulls that disperse out of natal herds lack the social buffering that herd individuals would have.…”

“…Elephants attacked men more frequently than women which can be associated with the high mobility of males and their involvement in chasing the elephants (Sarker et al., 2015 ). For instance, majority of the males were attacked while chasing elephants or traveling whereas females were attacked more frequently while fetching forest products or working at home (Supplementary information S1 ).…”

Human-Elephant Conflict: A Review of Current Management Strategies and Future Directions

“…However, Kenya reports that 50-120 problem elephants are shot by wildlife authorities each year and that about 200 people died in human-elephant conflict between 2010 and 2017 (Mariki et al, 2015). Other Asian and African range countries document similar or worse consequences (e.g., Graham et al, 2009a;Saaban et al, 2011;Webber et al, 2011;Tchamba and Foguekem, 2012;Chen et al, 2013;Mariki et al, 2015;Sarker et al, 2015;Acharya et al, 2016;Pant et al, 2016). Elephant conservation efforts have thus expanded their focus over time from reducing habitat damage and loss of elephant lives to ivory poaching and trafficking to managing the potential for human-elephant conflict resulting from increased space and resource competition (Caughley, 1976;Douglas-Hamilton, 1987;Caughley et al, 1990;Kangwana, 1995;Sukumar, 2006;Hoare, 2015).…”

The Relationship Between Feeding Patch Quality and Fodder Species of Wild Elephants in the Teknaf Wildlife Sanctuary, Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh

“…The TWS forms a narrow strip that lies between 20 0 52' to 21 0 09' N latitude and 92 0 08' to 92 0 8' E longitude, is straight from north to south with a length of 28 km and has a 3.5 km breadth in the east-west direction (Rosario, 1997;Mukul, 2007) (Figure 1). On the east coast, it is confined by the Naf River and on its west coast by the Bay of Bengal (Sarker et al, 2015;Hassan, 2017). The TWS is 82 km away from Cox's Bazar district and encompasses a 11,615-ha hilly area out of a total of 551,000 ha of hill forest (Department of Environment [DoE], 2012; Sharma & Yonzon, 2005) and is delineated by 10 blocks, with 6 on the east coast and 4 on the west coast (Bari & Dutta, 2004).…”

“…Currently, the elephants in Bangladesh are confined to evergreen and semievergreen hilly forests in two parts of the country, e.g., the southeastern and northwestern parts. However, in previous decades, their range extended to deciduous and floodplain forests over most parts of the country (Sarker, Hossen, & Røskaft, 2015). We performed our research fieldwork in the TWS, which is located in the southeastern part of the country.…”