Sandesh Kadur, a wildlife filmmaker who happened to be in the area, says the cable was just 1.57 m. off the ground. Successive years of water logging had eroded the base of the posts, making them lean at an angle and resulting in sagging lines. Sandesh says that the range officer, in the vicinity at the time of the accident, heard a loud explosion. A spotlight search revealed a dead tusker in the water while another had a lucky escape. Assam has seen the deaths of four elephants and a young boy due to electrocution in the past one year.
In 2014, a pair of elephants was found dead in Darjeeling, West Bengal, while the Karnataka state Elephant Task Force report of 2012 revealed 78 electrocution deaths in five years. T.R. Shankar Raman of Nature Conservation Foundation says, “In parts of India, electricity kills more elephants than poachers. In Karnataka, the number of elephants that are electrocuted is three to four times higher than poaching cases."
Back in 2011, the Wildlife Society of Orissa classified 147 sites where low-hanging cable lines posed a threat to the area's wildlife. The power distribution companies claimed not to have enough funds to fix the problem and sought to use afforestation money for the same. Since then, a small per cent of wires across the state have been fixed, but lack of funds has rendered the project incomplete.
This is a case of negligence by state power distribution companies, and is responsible for endangering the lives of animals protected by the Wildlife Protection Act, 1972. In many parts of the country, lines don't conform to the standard 6 m. height set by the Indian Electricity Rules, and thus elephants continue to die. Shankar Raman worked with a committee to prepare the ‘Guidelines for linear infrastructure intrusions in natural areas: roads and powerlines.' It suggests, “For natural areas with presence of Asian elephants, Guideline #4.27 specifying minimum 6.6 m. above ground on level terrain (slope <20 degrees) and minimum 9.1 m. above ground on steeper terrain (slope >20 degrees) shall apply."
In 2010, the Mahesh Rangarajan-headed Elephant Task Force submitted a report on power lines and protection. In the five years that followed, many wildlife reserves and power companies came together to save terrestrial, aerial and arboreal species at risk. In Periyar Tiger Reserve, Kerala, power companies buried approximately 5 km. of power lines that were in the way of elephants. In Kutch, Gujarat, after 400 flamingos hit overhead electric cables, the lines were laid in an 8 km. underground stretch. In Cauvery Wildlife Sanctuary, the state power distribution company strung an insulated cable for over 20 km. up to MM Hills. So be it in air or under the ground, measures can indeed be taken to simultaneously protect wildlife and transmit power.
Source: The Guardian.
