Sundargarh: Rampant poaching and increasing man-animal conflicts have been responsible for the deaths of wild elephants in the state. Shockingly, two pachyderms were electrocuted in the state within a span of fewer than 24 hours.
After the death of an elephant calf that got enmeshed in a live wire trap laid to poach wild boars in Sonepur’s Binika forest division on Tuesday, a female elephant reportedly died due to electrocution in the Ulushura Reserve Forest near Lashda in the Jarda Range of the Banai forest division of Odisha’s Sundargarh district on late Tuesday.
According to the Ulushura forest DFO, the female elephant died of electrocution after she came in contact with a live wire laid by a farmer for digging a borehole in his field.
A team of Forest personnel and scientific officials from Bhubaneswar is scheduled to visit the spot for inspection on Wednesday.
Meanwhile, a male elephant died in the Koida range some days back. Frequent deaths of elephants have angered villagers living in fringe areas of forests in the state. They have blamed the Forest Department for the unfortunate deaths of so many wild animals in the state in recent times.
It is worth mentioning here that recently the Odisha Forest and Environment Minister Pradip Amat told the state Assembly that a total of 784 elephants have died in the state in the last 10 years, many due to man-animal conflict.
