CROP RAID ANALYSIS; CROP WISE: AT NAGARAHOLE FOREST BUFFER VILLAGES

Elephants entering into human habitat in search of food has become a serious issue along the Nagarahole forest fringe. Although many measures have been taken to control the menace of elephants, it still persists due to human mistakes. Especially elephants are highly fond of eating human food crops such as paddy sugarcane ragi maize, banana and so on, in other words all types of human consuming farm crops are elephant’s food. Apart from the strong liking towards these crops, the elephants have strong sense of detecting the types of crops and age of crops from far of distance. This sensitivity of elephant is a major culprit   for the elephants to cross all barricades and enter into farm land despite of threat to its life. In this paper crop wise elephant raid analysis covered through field studies has been brought out for the interest of the reader.