Human-wildlife conflict has emerged as an issue that remains unresolved so far, resulting in damage and losses on both sides. In fact, the incidents of wild animals fatally attacking people and injuring them are rising. Many other incidents of crop damage and killing of domestic animals are reported from around the country. The losses of lives and properties naturally make people angry which results in revenge killing. As a result, wild animals get killed and injured despite the prevalence of legal provisions against such activities. Poachers challenge the wildlife protection law and security watchfulness and kill wild animals to sell their parts such as fur, skin, bones, musk, gall and other parts in the illegal market. In lack of animal conservation awareness or out of a sense of revenge, local people sometimes tend to turn a deaf ear to poaching activities. These incidents are terrible as they have been putting lives on both side in peril. What concerns more is the fact that, instead of finding some ways to minimise the man-animal hostilities, more and more fatal encounters are happening. Conservationists are thinking hard to resolve this issue but without a success. Nepal is facing rising cases of human-wild animal conflict at a time when it has made exemplary track record on conservation front.

People in the Terai belt, especially in the eastern part, had heaved a sigh of relief because the incidents of wild elephant rampage had not happened for a long time. But people in Jhapa were reminded of late that it was not the end of their nightmare as the wild jumbos coming from across the border in India unleashed fresh terror. The tale of jumbo terror is alive and people have to live in sleepless nights and constant terror again. A news dispatch from Damak of Jhapa district says that an elderly man was chased by an elephant in Mechinagar on Monday was injured. He died during treatment in hospital. Three days previously, another old man lost his life in similar tusker attack at Damak of the district. Terror of wild elephants had halted in Jhapa for a year or so thanks to the electric fence created to fend off the large intruders. Desperate people had used various methods to scare away the elephants such as burning of chili powder, sling shots and spearing. Terrified villagers also used to keep vigil with burning torches but many a times the residents are caught by surprise at night. However, the electric fence installed by the government in collaboration with conservation agencies, had proved most effective until the jumbos discovered alternative way to enter the villages now.

Studying and identifying the causes of wild animal incursion in human settlements and applying long term measures may take long time but it is most urgent to put in place immediate measures to save lives and properties. The latest losses of lives in Jhapa in incidents related to the invasion of wild elephants from across the border demand new measures in this direction. Fatal attacks on the animals is not a solution; it is illegal and goes against conservation norms. Fending off and scare-away techniques should be applied for the short term and in the long run, broader strategy of habitat protection and expansion may lead to a lessening of conflict.