{"id":302346,"date":"2018-09-07T07:13:01","date_gmt":"2018-09-07T07:13:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tehelka.com\/?p=302346"},"modified":"2018-09-07T18:24:02","modified_gmt":"2018-09-07T18:24:02","slug":"railways-plan-bee-to-ward-off-elephants-from-tracks-piyush-goyal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/railways-plan-bee-to-ward-off-elephants-from-tracks-piyush-goyal\/","title":{"rendered":"Railways \u201cPlan Bee\u201d to ward off elephants from tracks: Piyush Goyal"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"yiv5283086691MsoNormal\" style=\"text-align: justify;\">\n<p class=\"yiv5283086691MsoNormal\" style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 14pt;\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\" wp-image-302347 aligncenter\" src=\"http:\/\/tehelka.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/railways-plan-bee-300x167.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"700\" height=\"389\" srcset=\"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/media\/2018\/09\/railways-plan-bee-300x167.jpg 300w, https:\/\/tehelka.com\/media\/2018\/09\/railways-plan-bee-768x427.jpg 768w, https:\/\/tehelka.com\/media\/2018\/09\/railways-plan-bee-1024x569.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/tehelka.com\/media\/2018\/09\/railways-plan-bee-696x387.jpg 696w, https:\/\/tehelka.com\/media\/2018\/09\/railways-plan-bee-1068x593.jpg 1068w, https:\/\/tehelka.com\/media\/2018\/09\/railways-plan-bee-756x420.jpg 756w, https:\/\/tehelka.com\/media\/2018\/09\/railways-plan-bee.jpg 1571w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 700px) 100vw, 700px\" \/>Union Railways Minister, Piyush Goyal on September 7 tweeted that \u201cRailways\u00a0have\u00a0come up with an innovative method to ward off elephants from railway tracks\u201d.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"yiv5283086691MsoNormal\" style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 14pt;\">Enquires reveal that the &#8216;buzzing&#8217; sound of bees, which is played from loudspeakers alongside these tracks, keeps elephants away and has brought down the number of accidents.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"\/\/player.vimeo.com\/video\/288778822?title=0&amp;amp;byline=0\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p class=\"yiv5283086691MsoNormal\" style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 14pt;\">The railways have put up a device that amplifies the buzz of swarming honeybees, a natural repellent for elephants. A test to verify its efficacy was conducted recently near tracks along corridors frequented by elephants and it worked.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"yiv5283086691MsoNormal\" style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 14pt;\">The railways were working on this innovative method for sometime and after four wild elephants were killed and another injured when a Guwahati-Silchar passenger train hit a herd crossing the rail tracks in Hojai district of central Assam night in February 2018. The result was that the engine of the train got disconnected from the bogies due to the impact of the hit, leaving hundreds of passengers stranded. Earlier in December, five elephants, including a pregnant female were killed when the Guwahati-Naharlagun Donyi Polo Express hit a herd crossing tracks near Balipara in Sonitpur district.\u00a0 At least a dozen pachyderms lost lives in train accident in the state last year, while speeding trains killed 16 elephants in the year 2017.\u00a0 The railways data say train-hits killed 16 elephants in 2016.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"yiv5283086691MsoNormal\" style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 14pt;\">Research indicates that Wildlife officials said elephants, despite their thick skin and size, are terrified of bees. Such is the dread, particularly of being stung on the sensitive trunk that a \u201cbee alarm\u201d goes off in an elephant\u2019s head with the slightest of buzz.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"yiv5283086691MsoNormal\" style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 14pt;\">The device, which costs around Rs 2,000 to put together, is audible to an elephant 600 metres away.\u00a0 The buzzing sound is in a frequency the elephants do not like.\u00a0 Railway wants it installed along railway tracks even in non-notified elephant corridors.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Union Railways Minister, Piyush Goyal on September 7 tweeted that \u201cRailways\u00a0have\u00a0come up with an innovative method to ward off elephants from railway tracks\u201d. Enquires reveal that the &#8216;buzzing&#8217; sound of bees, which is played from loudspeakers alongside these tracks, keeps elephants away and has brought down the number of accidents.\u00a0 The railways have put up [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":55,"featured_media":302347,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[36],"tags":[4822,4820,3820,4821,4810],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/302346"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/users\/55"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=302346"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/302346\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":302379,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/302346\/revisions\/302379"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/media\/302347"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=302346"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=302346"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=302346"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}