Harnessing the Power of AI to Combat Human-wildlife Conflict in Tadoba

One early summer morning, Suraj peers out of his window to see his mother head into the forest. His mother is among many women of Sitarampeth village in eastern Maharashtra who venture into the forests surrounding their village to collect firewood. Around noon, a few villagers rush to the village with distressing news. They’ve spotted a tiger prowling in the vicinity of the village and urge all villagers to stay inside their homes until the tiger moves on. This news leaves Suraj horrified as his mother is still in the forest. He desperately appeals to some of the men in the village to bring his mother back, but no one wants to risk a confrontation with a tiger. He waits anxiously until his mother returns home safely.

This is the plight of many villagers living in and around Tadoba-Andhari Tiger Reserve (TATR), where large carnivores and rural communities occupy the same piece of real estate. It’s a problem that the TATR management team decided to address head-on. Some brainstorming sessions started in 2022, and soon enough, they came up with an idea to harness the power of technology to mitigate instances of human-wildlife conflict.

Human-Wildlife Conflict – A Complex Conundrum

The Greater Tadoba landscape is home to over 200 tigers. Tigers living in the reserve’s buffer zone or young tigers at the age of dispersal (when they leave the natal territory) often venture into human-dominated landscapes. At the same time, the buffer zone of TATR offers residence to over 100 primarily agrarian villages that also depend on forests for fuel and fodder. This inevitably leads to instances where tigers and people run into each other, and there is a potential for grave consequences. Human injuries and fatalities in the region are not limited to encounters with tigers but may also occur because of other wild species like leopards, sloth bears, or wild pigs. Official records reveal that 9,442 conflict incidents occurred in this landscape between 2005 and March 2020, of which 58 per cent (about 5,477) involved tigers. This poses a major managerial challenge for tiger conservation as conflict incidents reduce the motivation to protect the majestic but potentially life-threatening species.

Enter: The Human-Animal Conflict Mitigation System (HACMS)

To combat the complex and dynamic issue of human-wildlife conflict in the region, the TATR management team felt that an early-warning system could be used to minimise interactions between people and large carnivores. Early-warning systems have been around for a while in India and have been used extensively to avoid human casualties caused by elephants moving through plantations or tea gardens. Traditional early-warning systems involve an observer spotting wildlife movement through a remote camera and sending out an SMS alert to nearby villagers or plantation workers. However, at TATR, managers felt that they could go one step further and integrate the power of artificial intelligence (AI) into their early-warning system. Consequently, the human-animal conflict mitigation system (HACMS) was developed in collaboration with a tech company named Valiance, and deployed in July 2023.

The HACMS is an innovative proprietary design that uses a combination of artificial intelligence (AI) and image detection to identify potential instances of human-wildlife conflict. The setup involves a camera that tracks animal movement and takes pictures. The camera has internet connectivity, and as soon as an animal is detected and photographed, images are transferred to the cloud, where an AI-based algorithm identifies the species spotted. This algorithm works on machine learning principles for which a significant database of images of different wild species has been fed into the system. This allows the HACMS to identify the species spotted, and AI is used to ascertain if the animal spotted poses a potential threat to human well-being. Currently, the HACMS identifies tigers, leopards, and sloth bears as potential sources of conflict. If the algorithm identifies a potential threat, it sends off a signal to the HACMS, and the hooter attached to the system alerts villagers in the vicinity to head back to safety, which may also alter wildlife movement. At the same time, a web alert is sent through the “Wildlife Eye” mobile application to forest department officials who may respond to the threat appropriately. The HACMS is equipped with LED lights to detect wildlife motion and take clear images during the evening, night, and early hours before dawn. The entire setup is powered by solar energy to deal with the erratic supply of electricity. Installing one unit of the HACMS costs about three lakh rupees, and the installation is carried out with the support of the local community.

The forest department has also recruited passionate young villagers and organised them into Primary Response Teams (PRTs). The purpose of PRTs is to alert villagers whenever there is wildlife movement in and around their village. So, whenever the HACMS detects a potential threat, PRTs immediately whip into action to protect the local community as well as wildlife.

The Future

With inputs from the local community and the forest department field staff, locations have been identified on forest land for setting up the HACMS units based on the movement of wild animals. Until June 2024, 40 HACMS units have been installed across 7 villages, with approximately 5-6 units at each village. Until mid-2024, the HACMS has sent out 1,354 alerts, of which 622, 285, and 447 pertained to tigers, leopards, and sloth bears, respectively. These alerts have allowed the PRTs and the forest department to mitigate human-wildlife conflict and achieve zero casualties in villages where the HACMS has been installed. The HACMS also offers an ancillary benefit of monitoring illicit human movement in the forest during restricted hours, enabling better law enforcement by the forest department.

In the future, the TATR management team also wants to develop a centralised wildlife control room. The control room will act as a central hub to receive information on any human casualties caused by wild animals. The purpose is to develop a standardised operating protocol to respond to conflict incidents and initiate immediate action. Whenever a conflict incident occurs or is imminent, information will be relayed to the control centre, and the forest department can respond immediately by deploying the Rapid Response Team (RRT) to reach the spot and initiate an appropriate response. Responses may range from crowd control to the immobilisation and rehabilitation of the wild animal.

With the positive outcomes of the HACMS in mind, it is vital to expand the system to cover more and more villages in a phased manner so that conflict across the Greater Tadoba landscape can be minimised. When it comes to instances of conflict, the only acceptable number is zero, and the TATR management continues to work tirelessly toward this elusive goal.