School damage by elephant: An emerging problem in forest-fringe area of Duars region, West Bengal, India

The Duars forest environment has been badly affected by adverse human activities like linear development through forest, human encroachment towards the forest boundary, illegal poaching, deforestation etc. The Indian elephants (Elephas maximus indicus) of Duars are suffers from impacts of that kind of adverse environmental situations. As a result they change their behavior with learning this change environment for ensuring their long life span in coming future. The school damage by elephant is the example of such kind of changing behavior. It is mainly observed in lonely elephant. It is the new addition of man-elephant conflict in Duars region. The schools locate in forest-fringe area are badly affected by this. It is the extra burden of government for reconstruction the school building that was damaged by elephant and also creates a problem in imparting education in Duars region. The number of incidents of school damage has been increase after starting of mid-day-meal at school premises. This changing situation should be focused in wildlife management strategy of Duars.