The crisis has only deepened after the 2009 Maoist attack in the STR. Regional Conservator of Forests Anup Kumar Nayak cited lack of patrolling inside the forested areas for fear of Maoists as the reason for the recurring elephant deaths. “No forest guard was willing to go inside the buffer zone after the Maoist attack in 2009. Though we are arranging protection camps, those are insufficient as we lack manpower. We have to manage with around 40 per cent less forest personnel," he pointed out.
Of the 22 jumbos killed in a year, five are tuskers and have all been killed by poachers for ivory, underlining the threat to the wild animals from organised poaching rackets. A series of deaths of 10 jumbos in June last year, followed by four? in October, three in March this year and three more a day back left the wildlife officials shocked. In Friday's incident, though official sources claimed that they had spotted carcasses of three elephants, unofficial sources put the number of deaths at five, including a tusker.
Nayak said a team sent to investigate the three deaths reported that the three female elephants were poisoned. “There was no tusker in the herd and it is suspected that local people might have poisoned the pachyderms to prevent them from entering their fields," he said. The visceras have been sent for tests to ascertain the exact cause of death.
Meanwhile, it is learnt that a well-organised poaching racket is operating in Similipal with the help of local hunters. The poachers use deadly poisons like aconite to kill elephants and also mix agricultural poisons in soil to kill the jumbos. Read the full report here.
Source: Express News Service, The New Indian Express, IBN Live, Baripada.
