Bicycle rally kick-starts wildlife week

BHUBANESWAR: Officials of the Chandaka Wildlife Sanctuary on Sunday took out a bicycle rally along with Van Suraksha Samiti (VSS) and Eco-development Committee (EdC) members to mark the beginning of wildlife week.
More than 50 VSS and EdC members participated in the rally carrying placards with messages to save elephants. The rally started at 8am and ended at 10 am. Senior wildlife officials were present at the event.
"The rally was meant to spread awareness about man-animal conflict among both the urban and rural populace.Awareness is necessary to check elephant deaths and human casualty," said divisional forest officer (Chandaka) Kedar Kumar Swain. Located on the outskirts of the city, Chandaka has seen rapid urbanization in the last few years. This has resulted in resident elephants leaving the sanctuary. While it had 50 elephants six years ago, the last year's census pegged the jumbot number at eight.