Lockdown Turns Disaster For Odisha Elephants: 14 Dead Since March 24

Bhubaneswar: The lockdown clamped in the wake of COVID-19 has proved a disaster for the elephants in Odisha. In the last two and a half months of lockdown, 14 of them have been found dead in the state with a carcass found in the forest of Angul district on Saturday.

In the latest case, the elephant of 20-25 years that had killed two persons in the last two months was found roaming in Chhendipada area of the district on Friday before going into Chhendipada Gudimara reserve forest, according to Forest officials.

Stating that the pachyderm was suspected to have died of anthrax, Angul’s District Forest Officer V Kartik said the carcass was buried after post-mortem.

But, wildlife activist Biswajit Mohanty said anthrax does not kill an elephant quickly. If it is infected by anthrax, the elephant would show erratic behaviour for a week before succumbing to the disease. But it did not happen in this case.

He suspected that the elephant may have died after coming in contact with a trap of live electricity wire set up by poachers to kill wild boars.

Of 14 elephant deaths reported from 10 forest and wildlife divisions since March 24, only two were natural. Four elephants died in Keonjhar division, two in Angul and one each in Keonjhar, Athagarh, Subarnapur, Bamra, Khurda, Balasore, Sundargarh and Boudh.

These deaths included five in the last eight days. The carcass of a 3-year-old male elephant with bullet marks was found in Boudh district three days ago though the tusks were not missing.

Similarly, three elephants including a calf died after coming in contact with live wire trap set up by poachers for poaching wild boars in Keonjhar and Sundargarh districts on June 12 and 14.