What to use to stop 200 elephants from raiding a village searching for beer?

[George Hill]

http://www.news24.com/News24/World/A...194445,00.html

Elephants raid villages for beer

Guwahati, India - A herd of wild elephants with a taste for local liquor are on the rampage in India's northeastern Assam state, crashing through fields and smashing down village huts to look for their favourite rice-brew tipple.

Forest officials said they had received reports of destruction by the elephants in many parts of northern Assam during the past two weeks, especially in the tea garden areas where people traditionally brew copious volumes of rice beer.

"Elephant herds have taken a fancy to drinking rice beer after entering tea garden labour colonies. In the process, they are smashing down many mud and thatch-roofed huts," a wildlife ranger said.

He said the runs were equally devastating before and after the drunken bouts.

"Most of the villagers, apprehending trouble from the elephant herds, stay huddled together at night. Thankfully, nobody has been trampled to death," the official said.

The herd of 200 elephants are believed to have crossed over into Assam from the neighbouring state of Arunachal Pradesh, looking for food and water.

Forest cover depleted

Their drunken exploration has again highlighted the issue of how a depleting forest cover in the region was leading to more elephant encroachments of human settlements.

Last year, more than 100 people were trampled to death by the pachyderms in Assam alone.

"More and more elephants are now straying out of the forests and making their way to villages and even cities due to loss of forest cover," said Kushal Konwar Sharma, a noted elephant expert.

"This is indeed very disturbing behaviour as the animals generally get highly agitated once they are detached from the herd."

Assam is home to at least 5 500 of India's total 10 000 elephant population.

Wildlife rangers said villagers in order to protect their properties had killed more than 200 elephants in Assam during the past five years, some of them brought down by poison-tipped arrows.

People also like the elephant meat and hack out their ivory tusks, which fetch a hefty price in the international market - a kilo is worth about 15 000 rupees ($300).

A full-grown elephant have tusks weighing up to 10kg, which can earn poor villagers an amount equal to more than a year's earning.

Poisoned 15 elephants

In September last year, villagers close to the Nameri National Park in northern Assam poisoned wild 15 elephants to death with a highly-toxic organo-phosphorous pesticide, forest officials said.

Villagers shrug off the elephant killings, saying they have to protect their lives and properties themselves as the forest authorities were not doing anything.

"We cannot just wait and watch our homes being destroyed by the elephants and our people being trampled to death," Tarini Das, a peasant at the worst-hit Panpur forest reserve in northern Assam, said.

The Assam wildlife authorities have asked the federal government for permission to allow the capture of wild elephants to minimise the damage caused.

The capture of wild elephants under five feet tall, or those pregnant or nursing female elephants, is banned under the Indian Wildlife Protection Act of 1972, without a special permit from the Ministry of Forests and Environment. - Sapa-AFP

[Azrael256]

Well, M82A1 comes to mind. That'd probably take care of the problem. If they wanted to stop it without using those evil "guns", I guess they could try to talk the elephants into going to AA meetings.

[C.R.Sam]

They need a good marketing advisor.

Kobi Elephant Steaks ?

Ship Beer Nuts to India ?

Do soused elephants like pickled eggs ?

Sam

He said the runs were equally devastating before and after the drunken bouts.

Rice beer will do that to you.

[Navy joe]

I think the appropriate weapons are a M-2 machine gun, many oil drum grilles, several thousand tons of charcoal and some steak sauce.

[Ledbetter]

Move the beer. Give the village to the elephants.

[Keith_Yorktown]

I was thinking it would be easier just to give them the beer. Or at least put a couple big kegs over in the neighboring province. Maybe with a line of bar nuts leading to it...

[pdmoderator]

200 mice.

- pdmoderator

[Lavan]

200 tons of peanuts in the NEXT village.

[hksigwalther]

20 mm Vulcan or 30 mm Goalkeeper should do OK.

[Standing Wolf]

Send in Shillary Snopes Clinton, the Hero of Chappaquiddick, Feinswine, and Upchuck Schumer to pass elephant control laws.

[Porter-Glockwell]

Make a trail of beer leading across the disputed Kashmir border and into the Pakistani military base. Put a big tub of rice beer in the general's tent.

Porter

[dinosaur]

We`ll let them have your beer, then an Arc Light strike. They ain`t gettin any of mine!

[John/az2]

More forest cover.

[George Hill]

"Last year, more than 100 people were trampled to death by the pachyderms in Assam alone."

Still not as many deaths as people being trampled by Soccer fans.

[Long Path]

Funny thing is, many American beers have a lot of rice malt in 'em, too. Rice beer is pretty durn common. (rice is more prolific than barley, thus a lot cheaper)

I would say flashbangs and Dragons Breath out of shotguns, but probably just getting the villagers to stop encroaching the forest would be best, if the goal is coexistance.

[LoneStranger]

Years ago in my misspent youth I wound up in Tsavo Nat. Park in Kenya. While at various places I observed belts of round rocks around various buildings. Asked one of the locals what was with all of the rocks. Local pointed out that elephants won't cross the rock belts account they hurt their feet. So that is how they keep elephants out.

Simple things can do a lot.

[citizen]

Geez, George, are you REALLLY that far out there?

I hope you get a job SOON!!!!!!

[scud]

You substitute the good beer for warm Hamms. Bet they wouldn't raid it for that stuff.

[Stoic]

Of course, this reminds me of the last college football game that I attended this year.

[Snowdog]

Nuke 'em.

Excellent method of "sabre rattling" to their western neighbor Pakistan, all while taken care of a problem of drunken elephants.

What's that? What of the town and villagers you ask? A nuke or two can't possibly make their situation any more worse than it has been for the past millennium or two. Maybe it'll cull out some of those pesky rats and cows that have been lingering around as well.

[Dr.Rob]

First I'd consider:

A) Am I viewing this herd of elephants through the bottom of a bottle of Rice-Beer?

B) Is there a Republican Convention in town?

C) Are the rest of the natives slower than me?

Best solution:

D) Open a bar that caters to a "Select Elephantine Clientelle", put up a velvet rope, hire a rhino as a bouncer, take Ivory in trade.

[Dagny]

PEANUTS!
or a 20mm Vulcan
or a tactical nuke

[George Hill]

Dr Rob with the best take.

[Zorro]

Conventional B-52 Strike!