Beehives along rail tracks to prevent jumbo deaths

The minister said the project has been downloaded from the Internet. He said that if the need arises,experts will be brought from Sri Lanka to help forest officials in North Bengal.

Chief Wildlife Warden S B Mondal confirmed that the department is considering the proposal of “artificially cultivating honey bees”.

Although the technique has been tried in Sri Lanka to prevent elephants from getting into villages,forest officials will try out a pilot project to see if it works in the forests of North Bengal.

Similar experiments have been conducted in other areas of Asia and Africa where there is a man-animal conflict.

According to the minister,this technique is being considered because building underpasses and watch towers on elephant corridors along railway tracks is a time-consuming project.

After seven elephants died after being hit by a train in September last year,an expert committee recomended setting up watch towers and building underpasses on the 42-kilometre elephant corridor in the New Jalpaiguri-Siliguri section.

Since 2004,29 elephants have been killed on the tracks. Two female adults died after being hit by a goods train in Jalpaiguri on June 25.

According to wildlife experts,the elephant generally travels at night and is often hit by goods trains on the route.