Athagarh: There is no let-up in elephant deaths in the state as yet another tusker was found dead Monday at the Nuataila cashew forest near Nuabandh village about 20 metres from the State Highway-65 under Athagarh forest division in Cuttack district. The death of the tusker has raised serious questions about the safety of jumbos in the area. The animal aged approximately 20 years was found with deep injury marks on its trunk and right leg with blood oozing from those. The animal before its death had defecated as dung was found lying in the area.
On being informed, Athagarh DFO Jagnyadatt Pati, ranger Rabindranath Nayak rushed to the spot and launched an investigation. Though the tusks of the elephant were intact, the cause of the death is yet to be ascertained.
Later, a team led by Angul RCCF Jogajayanand, experts from Satkosia wildlife sanctuary, and a team of veterinarians from Bhubaneswar and Athagarh reached the spot and conducted a post-mortem of the carcass and trimmed the animal’s tusks. Preliminary inquiries suggested that the animal might have died after coming in contact with live wires laid by the farmers to ward straying of wild animals to their farmlands.
It is worthwhile to mention here that the Athagarh forest division is in the news for a quite long time due to unabated elephant deaths in the region. Also, the forest division recently hogged headlines after a poacher allegedly died while in the custody of the Forest department. Notably, in various forest areas of the state, 20 elephants including 10 tuskers have died in the last nine months.