Tiger scare keeps villagers away from water sources

The need of the hour is creation of water sources in forests and reduction of human-wildlife conflict during summer in the likelihood of high temperatures this season. The possibility of animals, including tigers, visiting villages in search of drinking water will increase in the coming days. There has been an increased tiger movement on the outskirts of some villages in Komaram Bheem Asifabad district.

Water sources such as streams, rivulets and ponds are gradually getting dried up with soaring temperatures and the situation may worsen in the days ahead. Keeping this in view, forest officials should create drinking water sources like saucer pits, ponds that are filled with water with the help of solar pump sets to quench the thirst of forest animals, especially tigers that are entering villages that are located on the fringes of forests.

People of interior villages in Penchikalpet, Bejjur, Chinthalamanepalli, Sirpur (T), Dahegoan mandals are now eagerly waiting for a pro-active involvement of the monitoring committee that was constituted by the state government to resolve man-animal conflict.

Villagers are reporting tiger sightings on a daily basis in these mandals. Villagers of Digida of Dahegaon mandal and Kondapelli in Penchikalpet appealed to the committee to visit villages where people are scared of the increased tiger movement. Two persons were killed in separate incidents in these mandals last November.

Locals say that the human-wildlife conflict is now gradually becoming a conflict between villagers and forest officials as far as tiger conservation and tiger attacks are concerned.