Bhubaneswar, March 31 A total of 523 people have lost their lives and 1,391 were injured in attacks by wild animals, including elephants, in Odisha over the past three years, Forest Environment & Climate Change Minister Ganesh Ram Singkhuntia told the Assembly on Tuesday.
Responding to a written query by BJP legislator Padmalochan Panda, the minister said 175 people were killed, and 408 others were injured by wild animals in different forest divisions of Odisha during the financial year 2022-23, while such death and injury figures rose to 186 and 445 during 2023-24, respectively.
Similarly, wild animals have killed 164 people and injured 538 individuals in the state during the fiscal 2024-25, he said.
According to the data submitted by the Forest minister, 92 people have lost their lives in conflict with wild animals in the Dhenkanal forest division, while 54 such deaths were reported in the Angul forest division during the three years.
Other forest divisions that reported higher numbers of deaths due to wild animal attacks include: Keonjhar (52), Baripada (36), Sambalpur (34), and Bonai (33). Notably, Odisha has 43 forest divisions.
Similarly, a maximum of 155 people were injured in human-animal conflicts in the Keonjhar forest division, followed by the Dhenkanal forest division (113), Khurda (87), Redhakhol (77), Khariar (66) and Deogarh (65), he stated.
Further, Singkhuntia said that 264 wild animals were killed in the state during the three years, of which 132 died due to unnatural causes.
During this period, four royal Bengal tigers, 25 leopards and 1426 other wild animals were killed in different forest areas of Odisha, of which 447 were killed by poachers, he added.