BHUBANESWAR: In Odisha, where elephant casualties are reported with alarming frequency, death of a jumbo in Athagarh was suppressed last year by the forest officials, an inquiry has revealed.
That is not all. The tusk of the dead elephant too was not reported.
In a clear breach of Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) for reporting elephant deaths and disposal of carcass, the range office of Athagarh allegedly kept the Forest department in dark about for more than a year.
The matter came to light after a report was submitted by Regional Chief Conservator of Forest (RCCF), Angul to the Principal Chief Conservator of Forest (PCCF) Wildlife recommending action against the errant officials and staff of the range, sources said.
“The investigation ordered into the incident found involvement of two to three officials and action has been recommended against them,” said sources.
DFO of Athagarh Forest Division Sudarsan Gopinath Jadav said the incident took place in August 2020 when a 15-year-old tusker was found dead in Subasi reserve forest.
Though postmortem was carried out on the jumbo, the carcass was buried without informing the matter to Athagarh FD.
The report was allegedly suppressed at the range-level, even as SOP mandates presence of DFO and RCCF during burial of an elephant carcass.
The tusks recovered were also not deposited with the division office in breach of the SOP, the DFO said.
As per the SOP, the tusks recovered from the carcass were supposed to be kept in the treasury of the division office as evidence or should have been destroyed, in case of a natural death, at the DFO level.
However, the tusks were kept with the Range Officer and deposited with the division office on demand by the DFO. It was also alleged that the carcass had bullet injuries.
The DFO, however, clarified that it was not an incident of poaching. Sources pointed out that when the elephant carcass was reported, the local forest guard prepared the report and submitted it to the range office.
However, the matter was supposed to be reported to Wildlife Warden and then the Chief Wildlife Warden but it was kept under wraps, meaning the elephant’s death was never officially recorded.
The incident, meanwhile, raised serious questions on monitoring of wildlife deaths and recovery of items which could even be misused in absence of a mechanism for strict enforcement of the SOP. PCCF (Wildlife) Shashi Paul couldn’t be reached for his comments.