For generations, people in Wayanad, Kerala, have lived alongside wild animals. They learned to read their movements and adapted to the rhythms of the forest, adjusting to changing seasons, rainfall and scarcity. What many were less prepared for was a world in which access to that forest became increasingly restricted, through regulations, barriers and bureaucratic procedures that steadily altered a long-standing relationship.
In Chekadi ward of Pulpally gram panchayat, on the eastern edge of Wayanad district, the boundary between forest and settlement is barely visible. This is where lives Bhasavi, a 65-year-old Kattunaika tribal woman from the Chandroth tribal colony. Two years ago, she entered the forest to collect firewood, something she had done since childhood. An elephant charged at her. She survived, but the consequences have proved lasting.
Partially paralysed, she now moves slowly and often relies on others for support. Hospital visits have become routine, bringing expenses her family struggles to bear. The independence she once took for granted has largely disappeared. “I went because that is how we live,” she tells Down To Earth (DTE), sitting on the floor of her house.
In the same colony lives Kali Nooran, an octogenarian from the Kattunaika community who have traditionally depended on the forest for their livelihoods, such as honey collection. She was attacked by an elephant while grazing cattle. Today, she can no longer walk without support and continues to undergo treatment.
“There is compensation if someone dies,” says C R Rajesh, a neighbour and farmer who has watched both women struggle in the years since their injuries. “For people who live like this, year after year, there is nothing. No rehabilitation. No livelihood plan.”
Neither woman had insurance. Beyond initial medical assistance, neither received sustained support. Their injuries have imposed lasting costs yet have attracted little public attention and prompted few policy responses.
In Noolpuzha gram panchayat, which borders the Nilgiris in Tamil Nadu, B Pradeepkumar still measures time against a single event. Now 45, he was much younger when his father, O Bhaskaran, was killed by a tiger in 2015.
Bhaskaran’s death is one of several tiger-related fatalities officially recorded in Wayanad. In government records, it appears as a case number accompanied by dates and compensation payments. For his family, however, its consequences endured long after the paperwork was completed.
“They told us my father died for conservation,” Pradeepkumar tells DTE, sitting outside his modest home near the forest edge. “But conservation did not feed us.” After years of petitions, visits to government offices and public pressure, Pradeepkumar was offered a temporary job as a forest protection watcher. The position pays Rs 830 a day, but only when work is available. “Some months I get 10 days of work, some months 12,” he tells DTE. “And this is supposed to be the compensation for losing my father.”
Today he walks many of the same forest paths where Bhaskaran was killed. His duties include monitoring wildlife movements, reporting animal sightings and warning nearby villagers. “They say people like me should understand animals better,” he said. “I do. I also understand hunger.” The job offers neither long-term security nor pension benefits. Income depends entirely on the availability of work. More than a decade after his father’s death, the support provided to the family remains temporary.
Wayanad has emerged as one of Kerala’s most acute human-wildlife conflict zones. The reason is not simply the abundance of wildlife, but its location at the intersection of dense forests, fragmented corridors, plantations, tribal settlements, migrant-worker colonies and a growing tourism industry.
The forest ranges of Tholpetty, Mananthavady and Sulthan Bathery form a mosaic in which wildlife movement overlaps with everyday human activity. Elephants, tigers, leopards, gaur and wild boar increasingly move through landscapes that often cannot provide sufficient food and water within forest boundaries.
Fatal attacks are only the most visible manifestation of the problem. Crop damage, livestock losses, injuries, psychological distress and declining livelihoods account for a much larger share of the burden. In recent years, attacks have repeatedly triggered protests across Wayanad. Demands for the capture, relocation or shooting of animals follow a familiar pattern. Governments promise action, yet many of the underlying drivers remain unresolved.
“The forest is closed for people, not for animals,” says N Badusha of the Wayanad Prakrithi Samrakshana Samithi, who has spent years documenting ecological changes associated with the conflict. “Collection of minor forest produce is restricted in the name of protection,” he says. “But livelihoods are shrinking. People are pushed into riskier situations, often entering forests at odd hours because they have few alternatives.”
Badusha also points to ecological changes within protected areas. According to him, shortages of fodder and water have become increasingly pronounced. “Grasslands have disappeared. Waterholes dry up. Invasive species such as Senna spectabilis and lantana have choked native vegetation,” he says. “Elephants do not leave forests because they seek conflict. They leave because forests no longer sustain them.”
Weeds such as Senna spectabilis has spread widely across parts of Wayanad’s wildlife habitats, forming dense stands that suppress native grasses and herbs on which herbivores depend. The result, conservationists argue, is a decline in forage availability within some forest areas. “When animals come out, the response is often to blame people rather than address conditions inside forests,” Badusha says.
For K K Surendran, a tribal-rights activist who has worked in Wayanad for decades, the crisis is as much political as it is ecological. “Forest closure is often the first response after an attack,” he says. “For many tribal families, that means the loss of access to livelihoods.”
He argues that restrictions on collecting minor forest produce have weakened traditional systems through which communities managed coexistence with wildlife. Knowledge of animal behaviour, seasonal movements and safe times to enter forests has, he says, gradually given way to uncertainty and fear.
“Earlier, people lived with the forest,” Surendran says. “Now they are treated as intruders.” He views growing demands for animals to be shot as a consequence of that alienation. “When the system responds only after violence or protests,” he adds, “people begin demanding extreme solutions.”
Wayanad’s tourism economy, aggressively promoted as eco-friendly, has quietly become another pressure point. Night safaris, brightly lit resorts, traffic through movement corridors disrupt animal behaviour. Yet tourism rarely faces the scrutiny directed at local communities. “The forest is open for tourists, closed for people who depend on it,” Pradeepkumar said. “That tells us whose lives matter.”
Animals displaced by resorts and roads rarely emerge near luxury properties. They appear near labour lines, tribal colonies, and small farms where resistance is weakest and consequences encountered in private.
Human-wildlife conflict in Kerala is no longer confined to forest fringes. It has become a state-wide phenomenon cutting across landscapes and species. Official summaries placed before Parliament have reported dozens of deaths annually in recent years. The species profile, however, tells a different story from public perception.
Snakes account for the largest share of wildlife-linked human deaths in Kerala, most of them occurring outside forest areas. Housing conditions, sanitation gaps, delayed access to anti-venom, and lack of awareness turn everyday spaces into fatal zones.
Elephants follow, particularly in northern and central Kerala. Wild boar cause extensive crop damage and occasional fatal encounters. Gaur injure people in plantation belts. Leopards trigger high panic in mixed landscapes even when incidents are rare. Bonnet macaques raid crops and homes across midland villages. Crocodile encounters surface quietly near water bodies. Kerala has effectively become a multi-species conflict state.
The northern belt stretching from Wayanad to Kannur and Kasaragod combines elephant corridors, tiger and leopard habitats, plantations, and dense settlement. Aralam in Kannur has witnessed long-running elephant conflict affecting tribal families. Kasaragod sees persistent crop raiding near forest edges.
The central belt including Nilambur, Palakkad, and Thrissur forest fringes experiences intense elephant and wild pig conflict, which is often under-reported. Plantation landscapes and fragmented corridors dominate.
The southern belt around Konni, Ranni, and the High Range of Idukki sees frequent low-intensity conflict: crop destruction, injuries, repeated elephant intrusions, and rising local anger.
Across all belts, climate stress acts as a multiplier. Erratic rainfall, longer dry spells, forest fires, and altered fruiting cycles intensify competition for food and water.
Kerala has strengthened rapid-response teams, standard operating procedures and compensation frameworks. Human–wildlife conflict is increasingly treated as a disaster-management issue rather than a law-and-order problem.
These measures may save lives in the short term. They do not restore grasslands, remove invasive species, secure wildlife corridors, regulate tourism or rebuild livelihoods. Temporary barriers and rapid-response squads can push animals back; food scarcity draws them out again. Back in Chekadi, Bhasavi listens as others discuss protests, policy and politics. Her concerns are simpler. “They say animals have rights,” she says, and asks: “Don’t we?”
In Noolpuzha, Pradeepkumar prepares for another uncertain workday, patrolling forests that took his father’s life and now barely sustain his own family. Across Wayanad, fear has not turned into hatred so much as exhaustion. Residents do not call for an empty forest. They call for one that functions, and for their own lives to be accounted for within it.
The question is less whether wildlife should exist than how long communities can remain inside conservation landscapes that protect animals while offering little security to those who live alongside them.
This article is part of the series Conflict in the Backyard. A version of it was published in the cover story, Conflict in the Backyard, in the May 16-31, 2026 print issue of Down To Earth