Sambalpur: The carcass of a 20-year-old male elephant was found in Jaduloisingh village under Sadar forest range on Wednesday, just three days after another elephant died of electrocution in the same area. Earlier on Sunday, a male pachyderm died of electrocution near Khasupali of Lavdera Bolbanga reserve forest under district’s sadar range.
The elephant that died on Wednesday had external injury marks, but its tusks were intact. Forest officials suspect electrocution as the cause of death. “It is unfortunate that two elephants died in a week. I will personally review any lapses on the part of the divisional forest officer (DFO) and conduct an investigation at the RCCF level,” said regional chief conservator of forests (RCCF) Ashok Kumar.
Sources said a joint task force from Bhubaneswar arrived at the site and conducted a postmortem on Wednesday. The reports of the postmortem will be revealed by the DFO soon.
“As a monitoring authority, I have instructed the DFO to conduct a joint patrol by forest officials and the electrical department TPWODL. I have asked the DFO to expedite joint patrolling. Secondly, the DFO has been asked to get the geotagged data of the eleven KV electrical line so that they can track the elephant movement and highlight the vulnerable points of electrocution. Thirdly, more drone cameras are to be used so that we can have direct sighting of elephants and can disconnect the line wherever the elephant is moving,” Kumar added.