Death of rodents is continuing unabated at Balirajpur village. On Saturday about a thousand of mice were found killed whereas about a hundred of mice, a couple of cats and a snake also were found dead n the village and Khamarpada under Bagada panchayat in Kendrapara block on Sunday.
On Sunday, the district veterinary and animal husbandry officials led by CDVO Chaityan Charan Sethy and Additional CDVO Simphony Mohanty rushed to the two villages accompanied by a team of Bhubaneswar -based snake helpline to take stock of the situation and conduct an inquiry.
The Veterinary officials also seized two dead cats along with some dead rodents from the spot in order to conduct autopsy of the cats. Bhubaneswar-based Snake Helpline founder Suvendu Mallick collected the dead snakes and also some rodents in order organise its autopsy at forensic lab, stated Additional CDVO Mohanty.
As per the autopsy of a dead cat, it has been found that due to some sorts of poisonous effect, the cat died after consuming dead rodents. Meanwhile, the reports of dead rodents samples sent to Orissa College of Veterinary Science and Animal Husbandry at Bhubaneswar on Saturday reached before the District Veterinary office.
As per the postmortem report, it has been ascertained that most of the rodents have died due to some poison effect. But it is yet to be established what kind of poison it was, whether fertilizer, pesticide or something else, said Additional CDVO Mohanty.
The locals were asked not to use the water from the ponds, wells and also the rainwater until they are disinfected. They were also asked not to send the livestock to graze in the fields or to feed grass to the livestock by collecting it from the local agriculture field at least for a week .It has also been requested to the Sarpanch of Bagada to create awareness through public address system among the neighbouring villagers not to send their cattle to the agriculture fields of Khamarapada and Baliraj village for grazing.
Meanwhile, the District Veterinary unit requested district Collector Debaraj Senapati to direct the Health Department to take steps to disinfect the wells and ponds at the villages.
On Sunday, acting on the direction of the DFO of Cuttack, the forester of Kendrapada forest range Mausumi Behera and another forest personnel rushed to Baliraj village and collected about 10 samples of dead rodents. The samples are going to be sent to DFO office at Cuttack for conducting postmortem.