Forest Department officials arrested two persons from Khordha on Friday for allegedly using poison to poach peacocks in the Madhupur forest.
The officials also seized various types of nets, the skull of a deer and peacock feathers from their houses. Besides, they also detained two more people for selling peacock feather at a local festival in Khordha.
A joint team of the Khordha and Chandka Forest Ranges led by Chandka DFO and Khordha Ranger conducted raids at various villages including Madhupur and Angarpada in the morning and arrested the alleged poachers. The raids went on at various places in the Khordha area till late in the day.
Even though the department had been investigating the peacock death incident ever since the incident came to fore, the raids were intensified as a report of the Odisha University of Agriculture and Technology (OUAT) on Thursday pointed towards poisoning.
OUAT experts indicated that the peacocks and other birds that were found dead have most likely died of poisoning. The university authorities plan to send the samples to other institutes outside the State for specific inputs on the type of poisoning that killed the birds in such large numbers.
Notably, in an unprecedented incident in Khordha, carcasses of more than 20 peacocks, a crow and a heron were recovered from the Madhupur forest on December 8. The birds were suspected to have died before 24-48 hours. The serial deaths of peacocks continue in the forest with odd cases coming out every other day.
While bird flu was suspected to be the reason behind the deaths initially, Bhopal based National Institute of High Security Animal Diseases on December 15 ruled out chances of avian influenza after testing the swabs sent by the OUAT.