Two elephant carcasses found in Kuchinda forest in Odisha’s Sambalpur

Kuchinda (Odisha): Carcasses of two elephants, including a female and a male were found in the Tileimal Patra forest under the Bamra Badarama range in the Kuchinda area of Odisha’s Sambalpur district on Thursday.

The carcasses of the big animals were spotted by some villagers who informed the forest department officials. Upon receiving the information, officials concerned rushed to the spot and recovered the carcasses for further investigation.

After preliminary investigation, the forest officials suspect that the jumbos might have consumed pesticide that was used in farming in the nearby paddy fields. However, the exact cause of the death of the two elephants is yet to be ascertained.

Meanwhile, the rise in the number of deaths of elephants has raised concerned over the safety and security of the pachyderm population in the State.

In August this year, a three-member team, constituted by the Union Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEFCC), visited Athagarh Forest Division, Dhenakanal Forest Division, and Satkosia Tiger Reserve in Angul to inquire into the elephant deaths and recovery of carcasses. The team, headed by retired IFS officer and former PCCF (Wildlife) of Kerala Surendra Kuma, included scientist from Wildlife Institute of India (WII) Bilal Habib and Joint Director of Wildlife Crime Control Bureau (WCCB) HV Girisha.

A data revealed that Odisha is one of the states in India to have reported very high number of elephant death due to electrocution. At least 741 such deaths were reported in the country in 10 years till December 2020. Of those, Odisha accounted for maximum 133 deaths.

A total of 80 elephants died due to different reasons in 2021-2022. On an average, 33 elephants died during 1990-2000 while the numbers almost doubled to 64 in 2001-2010. Things became worse thereafter with 950 elephant deaths from 2010-2022.