DHARMAPURI: A pregnant elephant, which was being treated in Kesarguli reserve forest near Vatuvanahalli village died on Wednesday.
The forest team had found the elephant during a routine inspection on Tuesday. After noticing that the elephant was weak, the team informed District Forest Officer KV Appala Naidu, following which veterinarians rushed to the spot to offer treatment.
Speaking to TNIE, a forest staff said, “The elephant was severely dehydrated, and we provided supplements to it. There was no indication of injury on the elephant. We suspect that it could have consumed pods from Prosopis Juliflora plants in the forest area, which could have caused an infection.”
Forest ranger P Natraj said, “The female elephant aged between 24 and 26 years was under the care of veterinarian A Prakash. However, it did not respond to the treatment and died. Immediately after its death, we conducted a postmortem examination in presence of the DFO and found that the elephant was pregnant. We further found that the fetus was male and had completed the gestation period of 12 months.”
“The postmortem examination revealed that the elephant had suffered from a severe infection in the stomach, worms and intestines. We speculate that the elephant could have consumed water from a contaminated water body. With this, the death toll of elephants in Dharmapuri has gone up to seven this year.”