Within the death of a pregnant elephant in Kerala grabbed worldwide attention, three more elephants — one of them pregnant — are suspected to have died due to poisoning in northern Chhattisgarh district of India.
Three wild elephants, including one which is 20 months pregnant, were found dead in the last five days in the northern districts of Chhattisgarh. While the cause of death of the third elephant, whose carcass was found on last Thursday, 11 June is yet to be ascertained, senior forest officials suspect foul play.
On 9 June, Tuesday, the forest officials in Surajpur district found the body of a pregnant elephant which was near full term. “Her postmortem report clarified that she had cysts on her liver which was infected,” said a senior officer.
On 10 June, Wednesday, the carcass of another female elephant was found at a distance of 300 metres from the first one, in Pratappur range, but the forest officials couldn’t retrieve it till Thursday morning as the herd had been guarding the body for hours.
“But the cause of death is not natural, as the animal was healthy. Prima facie, it looks to be a case of poisoning,” APCCF Arun Pandey said to local media. A third carcass was found in Gopalpur area in Balrampur district. “We can’t say anything about the third animal, or its cause of death, but we are tracking if it was part of the same herd,” Pandey said.
The deaths come days after a pregnant elephant in Kerala died after ingesting firecrackers allegedly put inside fruits. In the past few years, several incidents of human-elephant conflict have been reported from the forests of northern Chhattisgarh, comprising Surguja, Korba, Balrampur, Surajpur, Raigarh, Jashpur, Korba and Koriya districts.
Indian Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate data shows that between 2014-2015 and 2018-2019 about 510 elephants died due to human elephant dispute.
2 young female elephants poisoned at , Pratap Pur Range, Ganeshpur Village, Soorajpur Forest Division, Chhatisgarh since yesterday. One of them was nearly full term pregnant.
Forest Dept is yet to send viscera for toxicology exam.
Wildlife seems to have no future in this country. pic.twitter.com/kc7oKdQjDh— gauri maulekhi (@gauri_maulekhi) June 10, 2020
