COIMBATORE: A female wild elephant, aged about 40 years, died without responding to the treatment at Karadimadai in the Madukkarai forest range on Friday, a day after it was found sick. This is the second death of a female wild elephant here this week.
Anti-Poaching Watchers (APW) who were on a regular patrolling duty inside the Karadimadai forests had found the animal in a weak condition on Thursday afternoon, said sources.
Subsequently, they informed the Madukkarai forest range officer. The range officer after getting permission from the Chief Conservator of Forest, who is also the Field Director of ATR and Coimbatore DFO, engaged forest veterinarian K Sukumar for treating the animal.
The treatment commenced on Thursday evening. The veterinarian has also administered IV fluids to improve her health. However, the elephant died at 11.55 am on Friday.
The postmortem revealed the animal had no external injuries.
“The elephant couldn’t consume the fruits given by the staff as it was sick. There were no external injuries to the animal. The animal could have died due to the infection of the uterus. We suspect it could have led to multi-organ failure,” said a senior official of the Coimbatore forest division. The carcass was left in the wild for scavengers.
Another female elephant had died on Tuesday in the Maruthamalai foothill where it was being treated for four days. Postmortem carried out on Wednesday revealed it had consumed plastic and was pregnant. Poignant pictures of this elephant with its calf had gone viral last weekend.