Elephant With Gunshot Wounds Dies in Odisha’s Cuttack; Know Details of Poaching and Other Cases in State (India)
Elephant With Gunshot Wounds Dies in Odisha’s Cuttack; Know Details of
Poaching and Other Cases in State (India)
Odisha Bytes
June 14, 2022
See link
https://odishabytes.com/elephant-with-gunshot-wounds-dies-in-odishas-cuttack-know-details-of-poaching-other-cases-in-state/
for photo.
CUTTACK: The elephant, which had sustained multiple gunshot wounds in
Odisha’s Cuttack district, succumbed despite the treatment of veterinary
doctors on Tuesday.
The 10-year-old tusker was spotted struggling for life in Narasinghpur
forest range under Athagarh forest division in Cuttack district on last
Tuesday. After Badamba MLA Debi Prasad Mishra drew the attention of Forest
minister Pradip Amat about the tusker in his Facebook post, a team of
veterinary doctors from Nandankanan Zoo in Bhubaneswar had rushed to the
spot for its treatment.
The veterinary doctors had found the elephant being shot at six different
places of his body including trunk, face and leg. While undergoing
treatment in the forest range, the elephant died, said Ranger Prafulla
Dehuri.
At least 133 elephants have been poached or poisoned, 144 electrocuted, 36
mowed down by trains and 6 killed by speeding vehicles on the road in
Odisha since April, 2010.
This was revealed by Wildlife Society of Orissa (WSO) and Animal Welfare
Trust Ekamra, Odisha during a press conference. The wildlife activists of
the two organisations said total 947 elephants have died during the period
including 426 due to natural reasons.
They accused the Forest department of attempting to conceal elephant bodies
or cover up the cause of an elephant death in numerous cases of late.
“Though it is difficult to conceal an elephant death, the Forest department
appears to have mastered the art of how to conceal or cover up elephant
deaths and mislead public on the actual cause of death,” they said.
They further said the fear of being punished with suspension for
dereliction of duties prompt lower level staff not to report an unnatural
death as seniors of the division do not offer any support or instill
confidence.
Barring a few, the veterinary doctors and pathologist, who carry out the
post-mortem or test the blood and viscera samples, follow suggestions from
the Range Officer or DFO and cite ‘safe’ reasons for elephant deaths
thereby covering up the actual cause of death, they added.
WSO has been unsuccessfully pushing Project Elephant and Forest Department
for the last 7 years to follow the protocol as followed for tiger deaths as
laid down by NTCA. Every tiger death post mortem is video recorded and
conducted in presence of at least two independent wildlife
experts/conservationist to ensure transparency.
The presence of independent observers during post mortem will prevent such
malpractices, they claimed.