'Naga chilly' to scare away wild elephants

Rama Kant Mishra January 07, 2009

'Naga chilly', or 'bhoot jolokia' in Assamese dialect, is known to be world's hottest chilly and that could be the latest weapon against marauding wild elephants who wrecks havoc in many parts of Northeast. The pungency of 'bhoot jolokia' is 855000 scoville units, that is nearly double the scale of Mexican chilly.

It is said to be used as a cure for stomach ailments and as a remedy to summer heat, presumably by inducing perspiration.

'Bhoot jolokia', a chilly pepper that grows mostly in Assam has been widely recognized after the DRDO of India developed a non-lethal grenade from it that could be used in anti-terrorist operations.

The DRDO and the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) are now working on developing the 'chilly' into a powder that could be coated on fences and ropes to scare away wild pachyderms.

"Two months back, a WWF experiment observed that the chilly could be a good scaring material. Its' powder when coated on fences and ropes that are erected on routes of the elephants can scare away the giants," RP Srivastava, director of the Tezpur laboratory of DRDO reiterated.

There is a proposal to start the experiment soon to validate this, and the DRDO and WWF are working to come up with an effective substance that can help in mitigating man-elephant conflict.