Quite shocking for the wildlife lovers of the State! For, within a span of a week, the industry and mines rich Angul district has witnessed death of three elephants, including two calves.
While on Monday morning, an elephant calf carcass was recovered from the Kandhaberani forest in Talcher range, within 24 hours another pachyderm was found dead in Antulia-Tabeda reserved forest on Tuesday near a paddy field, 40 km from the district headquarters town. The elephant was killed due to electrocution.
Sources said the elephant came in contact with live wire connected with an 11-KV line between Jarapada and Tikarpada, which had been spread stealthily to kill wild animals like deer and boar by the locals. The elephant’s body was first sighted by the villagers, who later informed the nearby forest officials. Interestingly, a Divisional Forest Office is there near 2 km of the spot where the elephant was killed.
Tabeda villagers alleged that a gang of poachers is active in the locality whose main occupation is to kill wild animals by snaring or electrocution.
The gang is selling the meat, skin, horn, tusk and other parts of the animals to Angul markets. Most swanky hotels are its customers. The modus operandi of the poachers is that they lay live wire through illegal hooking with the 11KV line in the locality at night and find animals entangled and killed in the wire the next morning.
Despite repeated complaints with the DFO, Angul, CESU authorities and police, no action has yet been taken to nab the gang, alleged the villagers. Pin-pointing at a few persons of their locality, they said that one Sujan Pradhan was leading the gang of poachers but the local police were almost doing nothing to arrest him.
Talking to The Pioneer, Angul honorary wildlife warden Prassana Kumar Behera said the Jarapada-Tikarpada area has turned dubious for poachers who are killing wild animals by illegal hooking. He informed that in last three years at least six elephants have been killed due to various reasons in the area.
Four of them have been killed due to electrocution alone, he said. He added that elephant death mostly occurs during October-November in the area.