Athagarh: A day after carcass of an elephant was found near Taila in Sukasan reserve forest, Athagarh Divisional Forest Officer (DFO) Sasmita Lenka on Thursday confirmed that it was a case of poaching.
“Preliminary investigation shows that the elephant was trapped and made to consume some poisonous item,” she said.
According to the postmortem conducted by a team of veterinary doctors from OUAT led by Prof Dr Niranjan Sahoo, the elephant’s tongue was chafed and there were severe injuries inside its mouth. It is suspected that something exploded inside its mouth, leading to severe bleeding. It reportedly died of excessive blood loss.
“The pachyderm had sustained critical injuries inside its mouth and was bleeding profusely. The jaws were broken and tongue was chafed,” informed Athagarh block veterinary officer Sushant Kumar Behera.
The final report would shed light on the exact cause of the death, he added.
According to sources, poachers have become active in the forest in the absence of proper patrolling. Since the reserve forest has a huge population of wild boars, poachers use bombs to hunt animals. Five elephants have died in as many months in the forest, the sources added.
Meanwhile, residents of Sabar Taila village gheraoed the DFO office here protesting against the detention of the owner of the land, where the eight-year-old female elephant was found lying dead with blood oozing out of its mouth on Wednesday.
