Tragic! Herd Of Four Elephants Die Of Electrocution In Andhra Pradesh
In a tragic incident, four wild elephants were electrocuted in Andhra Pradesh's Parvathipuram-Manyam district in the early hours of Friday.
The incident was reported from Katragadda village under Bhamini Mandal near the state's border with Odisha.
Two injured elephants missing?
Villagers on Friday found the four elephants lying dead close to an unprotected electric transformer.??
After being alerted by the locals, police and forest department officials rushed to the village and took up the investigation.?
According to reports, the electrocuted elephants were part of a six-member jumbo herd comprising two males and four females.
Two remaining herd elephants are suspected to have also been injured and have withdrawn into the forest.
The Andhra Pradesh Forest Department officials are trying to locate and treat the injured jumbos.?
Herd came from Odisha
The elephant herd is said to have recently entered the area from neighbouring Odisha.
Andhra Pradesh doesn't have a sizable elephant population, but in the past few decades, the state's border regions have seen frequent raids by jumbo herds migrating from Odisha, Jharkhand and Tamil Nadu in search of food.
In fact, for nearly 200 years until the 1980s, there was no documented presence of wild elephants in Andhra Pradesh.
However, due to the shrinking of their habitat in neighbouring states, elephants started entering Andhra, searching for food and water, especially in the summer.
Human-elephant conflict?
This has resulted in the elephants often raiding agricultural fields and an increase in human-animal conflict.
Just last month, three cows were killed and a car was crushed by an elephant in Bandavalasa village of Komarada Mandal Parvathipuram-Manyam district.
According to Forest officials, there were around 14 elephants in the area until now, and the Department was working on a plan to create an elephant zone there.
For the last several years, the forest department has been doing its best to push back elephants to the wild but did not succeed much.
Following the tragic death of the four elephants, Forest officials said they would take steps to protect the remaining 10 jumbos.
Electrocution threat for elephants? ?
Over the years, electrocution has emerged as the biggest cause of unnatural wild elephant deaths in India.
This includes electrocution from low-lying and broken powerlines and illegal electric fences.?
Last month it was reported that in Tamil Nadu, a total of 13 elephants were killed within a month,?out of which six had died of electrocution.
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