Wild Elephant Electrocuted By Poacher's Trap In Odisha, Second Such Death In A Week
There seems to be no end to the continued unnatural death of elephants in Odisha, as the carcass of yet another jumbo was found on Saturday morning.
The female elephant was found dead in Hindol of Dhenkanal district by some villagers.?
The carcass of a wild boar was also found nearby. Both the deaths are believed to have been caused by live wire traps laid by poachers.
Deadly week for elephants in Odisha
This was the second elephant to be found dead in Dhenkanal in a week. On August 28.
The female elephant, estimated to be about 25 years old was found dead in Khesra forest in Dhenkanal.?
Just a day before, on August 27, a tusker had died of electrocution in the Satkosia Forest Reserve at Jagannathpur in the Angul district, after falling into a trap set by poachers.
In the same week, on August 24, two female elephants had died of electrocution inside Krishi Vigyan Kendra in Judia under Keonjhar Sadar range.
Continuing elephant deaths in Odisha
Between June and August, 22 unnatural elephant deaths were reported in Odisha, with the majority of them linked to poaching.
Earlier this week, a three-member team, constituted by the Union Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEFCC) had visited three wildlife divisions in Odish amid the increase in elephant deaths there.
The team was headed by retired IFS officer and former PCCF (Wildlife) of Kerala Surendra Kumar, and its members included scientist from Wildlife Institute of India (WII) Bilal Habib and Joint Director of Wildlife Crime Control Bureau (WCCB) HV Girisha.?
Electrocution, poaching reason for most deaths
Odisha recorded the deaths of 245 elephants in 2019-22, out of which 82 were in 2019-20 and 77 were in 2020-21.
The state also accounted for 133 of the 741 elephant electrocutions recorded in India from 2010 to December 2020.?
In July, Santosh Singh Saluja, the Congress MLA from Kantabanji had told the state Assembly that a total of 245 wild elephants have died of unnatural causes in Odisha in just three years.
Elephant population in Odisha
According to the 2017 census, there were 1,976 elephants in Odisha. However, environmentalists had pointed out that the number of adult males was significantly less.
According to Wildlife Society of Odisha, in 2017, there were just 344 adult males, and in the five years since, at least 104 of them above the age of 15 have died of unnatural cause.
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