2nd June, 2017
A wild elephant crushed a man to death while he was foraging for mushrooms in a forest in south-eastern Nepal, local police said on Friday.
The man in his 60s had ventured into the community-run forest near his home in a rural part of Jhapa district when the animal killed him, said Hari Prasad Sharma, a senior police officer.
The man, who was from an indigenous community and earned a living from the forest, was searching for mushrooms when he came under attack, according to Sharma.
“Locals who reached the forest to collect fodder and firewood informed us about the incident,’’ he said.
Nepal has made progress in the conservation of endangered wild animals, it has 200 tigers, over 600 rhinos and over 150 wild elephants.
But the rise in numbers has led to dangerous encounters between humans and wild animals, raising concerns about the safety of people living near forests in the country’s southern plains.