COIMBATORE: Two elephants including a calf captured by the forest department, died due to different reason here on Wednesday. It may be noted that two elephants were electrocuted on Tuesday after coming in contact with live electric cable at a farm land near Mettupalayam.
In the first incident, a seven-year-old female elephant, which was getting treatment at Seeliyur in Periyanacikenpalayam forest range, died around 3 am on Wednesday. According to sources, the animal’s tongue was cut and right leg was fractured after biting an ovuttukai (country-made bomb) kept by farmers to protect crops from wild boar. “Though we administered more than 45 bottles of IV (glucose) to improve its health the animal died around 3 am on Wednesday,” said S Palaniraja, forest range officer of Periyanaickenpalayam range.
NS Manokaran, forest veterinarian, who performed the postmortem on the elephant said that the animal was severely injured and had infection on its mouth and right leg. “We have drained litres of puss from the animal’s leg, stomach and mouth. It’s stomach was empty. The animal was suffering from the injury in the last two weeks.”
In another incident, a two-year-old elephant calf that was injured on Tuesday after coming in contact with a live electric cable near Dasampalayam village near Mettupalayam, died within an hour after veterinarians carried out surgery to the calf.
Two veterinarians, Asokan of Sathyanangalam Tiger Reserve and Prayag of Karnataka, were providing treatment to the calf elephant inside the forest depot on Kotagiri road near Mettupalayam. According to forest sources, the animal had a deep injury on its trunk and was unable to consume water on its own.
“The forest department should not have captured the calf even though it was injured badly. Also, the department delayed the treatment. They should discuss with the NGOs working in the field,” said N Sadiq Ali, founder of Nature Conservation Trust.
The calf elephant along with its mother and another calf entered a farm land, owned by Palanissmy at Dasampalayam near Mettupalayam on Tuesday early morning, where they came in contact with the live electric cable.
With this, four elephants have died in a 10 km radius at Mettupalayam in less than 24 hours.