282 Elephants, 17 Tigers Died In Odisha In Three Years: Minister

Bhubaneswar: Forest and Environment Minister Bikram Keshari Arukha informed the Assembly on Tuesday that 282 elephants and 17 tigers have died in Odisha in the last three years.

According to the minister, 93 elephants died in 2018, 82 in 2019 and 77 in 2020. As many as 30 elephants had died till August this year.

He said out of the 282 dead elephants, seven were poached, 43 died due to electrocution, 13 were killed in train mishaps, four in road mishaps and 101 due to illness. Besides 34 have died due to old age and 59 due to other mishaps while the cause of the death of the remaining 21 is not known.

Referring to the death of 17 tigers, the minister said one Royal Bengal tiger was electrocuted and the others had succumbed to various diseases.

Besides, as many as 15 leopards had died during the same period. Of them, 5 were killed by poachers, one died in train mishap, 2 died of old age and four succumbed to diseases. The cause of death of three leopards is not known, he added.