Maharashtra reported the highest number of human deaths due to tiger attacks in 2022 at 85. Uttar Pradesh reported the second-highest number of deaths at 11.
As for deaths due to elephant attacks, Odisha reported the highest number in 2022-2023 at 148. West Bengal, Jharkhand and Assam were next with 97, 96 and 80 deaths respectively.
In the last five years, 293 people died due to tiger attacks and 2,657 people died to elephant attacks.
Minister of state Ashwini Kumar Choubey provided the data in the Rajya Sabha in response to a question from Jebi Mather Hisham, a Congress party MP from Kerala.
Hisham had asked whether the environment ministry complies state or Union territory-level data on "human-wildlife encounters".
Choubey replied saying that state and Union territory governments primarily manage and protect wildlife. He provided the available data on human deaths due to tiger and elephant attacks as reported by these governments.
His reply did not say why deaths due to attacks by other animals did not figure in the data.
Asked by Hisham for state-level data on how the loss of human lives, livestock and crops due to wildlife encounters were being compensated for, Choubey said the environment ministry did not collate this information.
"The states/Union territories make ex-gratia payments for loss of livestock, crops and human life including injuries due to human-wildlife conflicts as per the norms which vary from state to state," he also said.
A 2021 study on human-wildlife conflict said that at the time, the average compensation paid in India for human deaths was Rs 1,91,437.
Sumit Gulati, one of the authors of the study, told the Press Trust of India that increasing compensation for human victims of such conflict would reduce feelings of animosity toward wild animals.
"If governments invested in measures to reduce conflict based on an accurate understanding of the real value of the loss of human life, conflict would be reduced, and animosity would fall, making both those living near the forest and those who care about the beings in the forest better off," Gulati said.
Several states have since decided to increase the compensation they provide to human victims of such conflict.
Hisham also asked what measures the government proposed to take in light of what she said was an increased risk of animal attacks due to their growing population, as well as the resulting "decrease in informal players' reliance on forest resources".
Choubey said that measures taken by the government include issuing advisories to state governments on managing wildlife, including species-specific ones on mitigating conflict with humans; establishing wildlife sanctuaries; and providing financial assistance to states.
This assistance is provided under schemes which support the "construction/erection of physical barriers such as barbed wire fence, solar-powered electric fence, bio-fencing using cactus, boundary walls etc. to prevent the entry of wild animals into crop fields," Choubey said.
Reader Comments
How many die from monkey's?
A lot seem to die from lightning strikes too.
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If you were living in a tiny village somewhere way out in the wilds of India or Tanzania or wherever and your cattle were subject to lion attacks 24/7 and the local children were being eaten by tigers on the way home from school on a regular basis, how TF would you like it?