In for a ‘hot’ chase

Guwahati, Jan. 9: The army is fighting its “largest” adversary yet with a weapon “hotter” than the AK-47.

Constantly harassed by wild elephants, the army is planting the world’s hottest chilli in its camp adjoining the Gibbon Wildlife Sanctuary in Mariani to ward off straying herds.

“Everything else has failed. We are hoping that the Naga jolokia (Naga chillies) will do the trick,” a senior army officer said.

Elephants are known to detest the smell of the Naga jolokia and the army hopes they will stay away once the plants grow. To add to the sting, the army intends to smear chilly paste on the fence around the camp.

The idea was suggested to the army by a trust for biodiversity conservation, Ecosystems-India. The organisation is engaged in combating elephant depredations across Assam.

It is the first time that the armed forces are using a bullet-less armoury to take on the big enemy.

Army personnel at the Mariani camp have been at the receiving end of elephant raids for several years. A cook was killed by a herd a few years ago.

The army is hoping that the bhut jolokia — called so because people believe it is fiery enough to scare away ghosts — will spirit away the elephants, too.

The famous chilli, endemic to Assam and Nagaland, was recently acknowledged as the world’s hottest. Its hotness quotient — 1,001,304 heat units on the Scoville scale — makes it twice as fiery as the Red Savina, a Mexican variety that previously held the world record.

Till they got the chilli idea, the army think tank tried out all known methods to keep elephant herds at bay. Not one succeeded.

“We even electrified our fences, but the elephants found a way around them, too. They would uproot the poles and the fence would collapse,” the officer said.

Apart from elephants, the camp has been attracting other species of animals, including big cats. The man-elephant conflict is a phenomenon triggered by the shrinkage of habitats and food sources. Elephants venturing out of forests in search of food have devoured crops and killed many in the past few years. Scores of elephants have been poisoned, too, by vengeful villagers.

If the Mariani experiment succeeds, the army could use chilli plants to fight elephants in other bases near wildlife habitats.

A veteran forest department official, however, warned that elephants were “intelligent mammals” and capable of quickly figuring out “solutions to their problems”.