📷 Image: Wikimedia Commons / Bernard Gagnon
Agriculture
Around 20 Wild Elephants Enter Salakhnia Fields, Driven Back After Four‑Hour Effort
✍️ Amar Ujala · Madhya Pradesh
🗓 02 Oct 2026, 07:31 PM
👁 10
About twenty wild elephants from Bandhavgarh Tiger Reserve moved into agricultural fields in Salakhnia, Madhya Pradesh, damaging roughly one acre of crops before forest officials and villagers herded them back to the forest after a four‑hour operation.
Bandhavgarh Tiger Reserve in Umaria district, Madhya Pradesh, reported an incursion of roughly twenty wild elephants into the agricultural lands of the village of Salakhnia. The herd entered the fields early in the day, trampling crops and causing damage estimated at about one acre.
Local farmers alerted the forest department, prompting a coordinated response. Forest officials, together with villagers, worked for close to four hours to guide the elephants away from the cultivated area and towards the adjoining forest cover.
By late afternoon the animals were successfully herded back into the reserve, and the immediate threat to the remaining crops was averted. Authorities are monitoring the situation to prevent further human‑wildlife conflict in the region.
The incident underscores the ongoing challenges of managing wildlife movements in areas where forest boundaries intersect with farmland, a concern for both conservationists and the agrarian community.
Local farmers alerted the forest department, prompting a coordinated response. Forest officials, together with villagers, worked for close to four hours to guide the elephants away from the cultivated area and towards the adjoining forest cover.
By late afternoon the animals were successfully herded back into the reserve, and the immediate threat to the remaining crops was averted. Authorities are monitoring the situation to prevent further human‑wildlife conflict in the region.
The incident underscores the ongoing challenges of managing wildlife movements in areas where forest boundaries intersect with farmland, a concern for both conservationists and the agrarian community.