Pachyderms stray into coffee plantations

Wild elephants have been straying into coffee plantations in Mayamudi, Dhanugala, Kamate and Balaji areas in broad daylight.

As the pachyderms have been lurking around, vehicle riders and pedestrians hesitate to get into the streets.

Elephants were spotted in the coffee plantations at Mayamudi-Balele main road.

Many a time, the elephants have rammed across the vehicles while crossing the road. Dhanugala-Murdeshwar temple road is known to be a hotspot of the abrupt movement of elephants. A wild elephant smashed a vehicle carrying schoolchildren near Kamate four months earlier.

In another case, an elephant attacked a woman near Kolubane in Mayamudi on Monday evening. The labourers working in the coffee plantations are in a state of extreme panic.

C Cariappa from Titimati and Environmentalist Prabhu said that the elephants have been moving from one plantation to another. They are not going back to the forest as there is no bamboo left in the forest. All bamboo bushes have dried-up due to lack of rain and the pachyderms have come to the plantations in search of food, they added.