COIMBATORE: Two wild elephants were found dead at two different locations within the Coimbatore forest division in 24 hours. In the first incident, a nine-year-old male elephant was found dead inside the CRPF campus at Kurudampalayam under the Periyanacikenpalayam forest range on Sunday evening.
Postmortem carried out on the elephant found that the animal could have starved to death due to a mouth injury. DFO N Jayaraj said that the mandibles of the animal were damaged three weeks ago and was unable to chew grass which led to the death of the jumbo as it was not getting any food.
“We have sent the bone samples to the lab and will only get a clear picture whether the elephant’s mandibles have been damaged after biting Avuttukai or not only after getting the results,” he added. The official said that they had been monitoring the health of the animal since November 29, when it fell sick and was roaming slowly at Varappalayam near Thadagam North forest beat.
“We were unable to approach the animal to check his health condition. However, the animal was roaming along with the herd. Though we placed medicine-laced fruits, the animal did not eat them. We have used drones to locate the animal and more than 20 staff from Coimbatore and Periyanacikenpalayam forest range have been engaged in tracing it. However we couldn’t find the jumbo,” said a forest department official.
In another incident, field-level staff of the Coimbatore forest range found the carcass of a female elephant at a Patta land in Pannimadai near Thadagam North forest on Monday. After the postmortem, officials said the animal age could have been 25 years old and might have died due to anaemia and lung infection. Samples of organs like the kidney and heart have been retrieved from the animal. With these incidents, the number of wild elephant deaths in the Coimbatore forest division this year has increased to 20.