Wayanad District Collector Dr Renu Raj has called for better cooperation between the Forest Department and the agrarian community to handle human-animal conflict.

At an all-party meeting held at the Collectorate Conference Hall on Wednesday, the Collector warned the public to not impede the activities of the Forest Department.

Recently, personnel of the Forest Department had complained about hostility from a few people of the Moodakolly Village where a tigress had killed and devoured 24 pigs from a farm.

Later, in a press release, the Collector said: “It is a shame for the entire village that the personnel of the Forest Department, including women, were subjected to recurring harassment. Some of them prevented the staff from setting up camera traps while a few others used foul language against the staff."

The meeting also demanded the implementation of the master plan prepared by a special officer appointed to resolve the human-animal conflict in the district. The participants demanded the compensation for damaged crops to be decided after properly assessing the impact of a wild animal attack. The constitution of a special ‘Forest Tribunal’, to deal exclusively with the matter of compensation for farmers in cases of wildlife attacks, was also suggested.

The Forest Department filed a complaint with the police against five persons who had allegedly hindered their work and used abusive language.

Even though the Forest Department set up cage traps to catch the tigress, it continues to kill farm animals. The farmers were agitated over the delay in trapping the animal since the first attack on a pig farm of Karikulath Sreenesh and Kollamparambil Sreejith on January 6. Wildlife experts identified the animal as WWL-39, a tigress, enlisted in the data bank.