BHUBANESWAR: A team of Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change (MoEF&CC) officials will visit Kalahandi on February 19 to review the death of six elephants including a calf, in Karlapat sanctuary due to hemorrhagic septicemia.
PCCF (Wildlife) in-charge Shashi Paul said the Central team has been formed by the Project Elephant division of the Ministry as per the requisition of the State Forest and Environment department. Earlier, the Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik had reviewed the situation and asked the department to take adequate measures to prevent elephant deaths in the sanctuary.
The four-member team comprising senior veterinarian from Guwahati Veterinary College KK Sarma, Centre for Wildlife (ICAR-IVRI Bareilly) scientist Karikalan Mathesh, MoEF&CC Elephant Cell national coordinator Prajna P Panda, head of department of Epidemiology and Preventive Medicine at OUAT Prof Niranjan Sahoo will visit the sanctuary between February 19 and 22 to find out the factors leading to sudden deaths of the elephants in the bacterial disease in the Karlapat. In the sanctuary, the source of spread of the pasteurella multocida bacteria - the cause of the disease - is still unknown.
The team will submit a detailed report with specific inputs on the causes, prevention and treatment of the disease to the Ministry. The Forest department will extend necessary support to the team in conducting its investigation, the PCCF said.
The PCCF (Wildlife) in-charge, who was on a three-day visit to the site where six elephants died within 14 days, said that special teams have been formed to track the movement of the herd infected by the disease and other two herds nearby the site within the sanctuary.
Forest officials are taking help of drones for effective tracking of the elephants to prevent them from approaching the infected site and get access to the stream where the elephants were found dead.
DFO Ashok Kumar said that the situation has improved and other elephants of the infected herd are doing well. "They so far have not shown any sign of sickness. The situation is being monitored constantly," he said.
The DFO said that they have decided to use thermal scanners in the drones that are being used for tracking the movement of the elephant herds for effective monitoring of their health and body temperature. Besides, the cattle immunisation drive in 32 nearby villages has been expedited as the veterinarians and experts are assuming that the bacterial infection could have spread in the wild from the domestic animals.