Water troughs around the arid Girivalam path of Arunchalaeswara temple in Tiruvannamalai town are being filled up for wild animals, especially spotted deer, by forest officials due to the soaring temperature in the temple town.
The initiative comes as the town has been witnessing harsh weather of around 38 degrees Celsius for a week. Also, more than 40 spotted deer have strayed into human habitations around the Girivalam Path since January. The animals come from the Adinamalai Reserve Forest (RF) in Annamalai Hills. “Increasing numbers of spotted deer in the RF make some of them stray into human habitation around the path, mainly for water. Providing water inside the RF will restrict deer movement within the forest area,” said N. Srinivasan, forest range officer (Tiruvannamalai).
Tiruvannamalai range has seven RFs including Chippakadu, Athipakkam, Adinamalai, and Sorakolathur, covering 13,000 hectares. At present, Adinamalai RF has 14 big water troughs in its 900 hectares. On average, each water trough has a capacity of 6,000 litres and will be refilled once every two weeks. Fresh water is delivered to the site by private tanker operators. Each water trough is located at the identified congregating spots of wild animals in the RF, at least two kms away from the nearest water holes like streams and ponds. Filling of water troughs in RFs will be done until May- end, before the onset of the southwest monsoon.
Preventing spotted deer
Forest officials said a major challenge in preventing spotted deer from straying into the Girivalam Path is due to garbage dumping, especially food wastes, by pilgrims along the 14-km-long path. Such overflowing garbage bins attract a large number of stray dogs from the area. Complete fencing of RF along the path will prevent animals from straying into human habitations in the temple town.
