Kuensel
25 May, 2008
Even as this article was being written late last evening, a group of six elephants entered a maize field in lower Hungay, Sipsu, as farmers helplessly watched from a safe distance. It was raining heavily.
This week alone, marauding elephants from across the border destroyed more than 17 acres of maize plants, a few acres of ginger in the villages of Hungay and Peljorling in Sipsu.
According to farmers of the two villages, such damage happens every year and, despite measures to scare the elephants like solar fencing producing electric current, stopping the 600-pound beasts was near impossible.
Last year, Samtse dzongkhag officials fenced a total length of about six kilometres, but farmers said that the solar fencings were stolen from time to time.
Pushalal Sharma, a farmer from Hungay, told Kuensel that the recent attack on the night of May 20 destroyed two acres of maize and ginger fields. “If elephants continue to come, next year we’ll not plant crops any more. Our hardship and efforts are going in vain”, he said.
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