The carcass of a female elephant was found by Forest Department staff on Sunday
| Photo Credit: SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT
Two adult elephants were found dead in different reserve forests of the Hogenakkal range, over two consecutive days. Forest Department officials said a female elephant aged about 16 years old was found dead in the Guthirayan reserve forest. The elephant was sighted by a forest team on Sunday. Likewise, a tusker was found dead in the Pennagaram reserve forest by a Forest Department field team on Monday morning. The age of the elephant, whose tusks were intact, is yet to be ascertained.
As of late Monday afternoon, an autopsy was underway on the female elephant that was sighted by the team on Sunday.
The latest deaths have taken the count of deaths of adults elephants to six, in less than a month, in Tamil Nadu, this year. Last month, two female elephants and a makhna were electrocuted to death by a farm fence in Morappur in Palacode. A barely four-month-old calf that was rescued from a well here and relocated to Theppakadu camp also did not survive.
District Forest Officer K.V.A. Naidu told The Hindu, that natural and unnatural (except poaching) deaths inside the forests were very common. “Unnatural deaths inside the forests may include injuries due to infighting or falls from a cliff, or drowning in rivers, starvation, disease, attacks etc.”
The spread of diseases from cattle is another unnatural cause of early deaths of elephants inside the forest, according to Mr. Naidu. Both wildlife and cattle compete for limited resources of fodder and water. Water gets contaminated by straying cattle during the dry season. Excessive feeding on prosopis pods causes toxicity in elephants, which is very common in the Hogenakkal range, he said. “That is why we are firmly acting against illegal cattle pen and goats inside the forests,” he added.