NILGIRIS: A 20-year-old female elephant was found dead at Nelakottai in Mudumalai Tiger Reserve (MTR) on Sunday. Forest department sources said they suspect the animal may have fallen to death from a height.
Field staff of MTR noticed the carcass on Sunday, and postmortem was carried out by veterinary assistant surgeon K Rajesh Kumar on Monday in the presence of Deputy Director C Vidhya.
After inspecting the carcass, the team suspected that the animal may have slipped from a height got caught between trees and died. There were body marks related to the falling of the animal in the slope terrain. The incident may have occurred two weeks ago as the carcass had putrefied.
An official said, “Most of the carcass had putrefied, but we were able to collect samples of skin. It will be sent to the Advanced Institute for Wildlife Conservation in Chennai for analysis and ascertain the sex of the animal.
Initially, forest staff said it was a tusker. However, the veterinarian found it was a female.
“We have removed tushes from the animal, and the age of the animal was confirmed after analysing its molar teeth. We have also checked the skull and arrived at the conclusion that it could be a female elephant,” the official added.
The postmortem was conducted as per the Elephant Death Audit Framework under which the death related details was uploaded in the EDAF app designed by the Tamil Nadu forest department.