MECHI RIVER, India-Nepal border -- Most frontier barriers are erected to prevent humans from breaching national boundaries, but along India's northeastern border with Nepal an electrified fence has been built to stop a different kind of intruder -- hungry elephants. The consequences have proved disastrous for thousands of Indian villagers.
The anti-elephant blockade is probably unique, but the conflict it illustrates is being waged daily across India and a dozen other Asian countries as humans continue to destroy forests and grasslands where elephants thrived for centuries, driving the intelligent mammals to raid crops, demolish dwellings and kill people.
