The forest guards who had accompanied the 110-strong herd of jumbos, which had left a trail of death and destruction in three districts, up to the Kaziranga National Park (KNP), had breathed a sigh of relief too soon. Hardly had one week elapsed when the herd split and 70 per cent of the mammoths are wending their way back wreaking havoc in their wake. Yesterday night, 14 huts were destroyed at Dainigaon near Nimatighat. A senior Forest official here said that the reason for the herd to come out from the forests of the KNP, in spite of food being available in plenty, was that the majority of the pachyderm had lost their essential character of foraging for food in the wild and had got used to a different kind of fodder by raiding the granaries in villages and feeding on fresh fields of vegetables, which was theirs for the picking as terrified villagers fled their home as soon as the herd announced its arrival. "Ever since the herd left its territory in the jungles of Arunachal Pradesh in 1998-99, on an average five calves have been born every year and for the last 10 years, the population has increased by 45 to 50 elephants. The elephants have since birth got used to human habitation and the easy availability of food of a different kind,' the official said. "Maybe the ones which have been left behind have adjusted once more to the wilderness,' the official further said. Emphasizing that the herd has now become a State problem, the official said that the Government should appoint a monitoring committee so that the herd can be chased back in an orderly fashion. The official stated that usually forest officials of one district chased them out to another district, where their jurisdiction ended and the forest guards in that district chased them back in turn, resulting in chaos and the herd moving back and forth in a haphazard manner. "Cooperation and coordination between the districts and a strategy to chase them back should be worked out if the elephants have to return to their territory of origin,' the official added.