Joda/Barbil: The forest department unraveled the cause of death of two elephants inside Gurubeda reserve forest under Champua range in Keonjhar district. The investigation revealed that poachers had laid electric wires to kill boars. However, two elephants came in contact with electrically charged wires and lost their lives.
Forest officials arrested three poachers who admitted to their guilt. The accused said they had cut off the tusks of the dead elephants. The poachers were identified as Sridhar Munda, Bindarai Munda and Matalu Munda of Gurubeda and Bholabed village.
However, forest officials have not been able to recover the stolen tusks. Further investigation in on. Given the circumstantial evidence, the department had suspected that the death of jumbos could be the outcome of electrocution.
It may be noted that the carcasses of the female and male elephants were recovered by forest officials near Gurubeda area from Baitarani (B) reserve forest following inputs from locals. The tusks of the male elephant were missing. The female elephant was around 20 years old and had died a week ago. The male tusker, aged around 22 years, was suspected to have died around five days ago.
Preliminary investigations were conducted by senior officials including Joda Additional Principal Chief Conservator Sashi Pal and Regional Chief Conservator of Forests (RCCF) of Rourkela, BK Swain.
During the site inspection, the officials had recovered long electrical wires and insulators from the area which indicated that the pachyderms were electrocuted, Keonjhar Divisional Forest Officer (DFO) Santosh Joshi said, adding that electric wires had been spread in the area by poachers to kill small wild animals like deer and boars, but the two elephants came in contact and got electrocuted.
