A wild elephant from India has started damaging paddy fields in Bahundangi of northeastern Jhapa. According to Shankar Luintel of Mechinagar Municipality-4, elephants, which used to eat ripe paddy, maize, kodo and other crops in the past, are now eating the growing paddy plants.
According to him, an elephant that came this morning destroyed the paddy fields of locals: Santosh Neupane and Bhairav Bahadur Gautam. The elephants have been pulling the newly transplanted rice seedlings by the trunk and eating the sapling.
The locals have become worried after the elephants, which sometimes come in groups and sometimes alone, start damaging the crops by eating them from evening to morning. The victim Bhairav Bahadur Gautam said that the seedlings of his fields were eaten. He complained that the farmers were suffering due to lack of elephant chasing mechanism.
In the northeastern region of Jhapa, Bahundangi, wild elephants from India enter the village daily. Even though the government has installed electric wires in the border area, elephants have been entering from the places where the wires have been broken.
Another victim, Santosh Neupane, said that the terror of elephants and corona came at the same time. The municipality has sealed off to curb the spread of coronavirus.
But elephants coming from India have been destroying the houses of the locals and eating the food inside the houses for a long time. Before, they ate ripe crops, they did not eat the seedlings before.
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