Despite the fact that one elephant recently found dead in Palamu Tiger Reserve (PTR) area was also found infected with Anthrax, the officials taking care of the region have claimed that there were no prevalent signs of the bacteria in the region after that.
One of the senior officials said on Thursday that the elephant calf found dead in the region on Tuesday this week too didn’t carry any sign of Anthrax outbreak even in its post mortem report.
“There is no sign of worry as far as Anthrax outbreak among animals here in the Reserve is concerned. The latest animal found dead earlier this week, an elephant calf of around a month age-old was also not found carrying any Anthrax symptom prima facie, nor it was claimed in the post mortem report. However, we remain alert in dense forest-type area like this,” said Palamu Tiger Reserve Deputy Director (North) AK Mishra.
Notably, as many as four elephants, including the calf have lost lives in PTR, one of the oldest tiger reserve areas in the country, within last six months. One out of them was primarily suspected and later confirmed of death due to Anthrax. However, officials don’t see any reason to believe that the area was possible target of Anthrax which gets into herbivorous animal body as easily as along with their daily meal, the grass. Also, carnivorous and omnivorous get infected through Anthrax after eating flesh of already infected animals.
“PTR is a home of over 200 elephants in the State, which is more than one-third of the total elephant population in Jharkhand. There are aged ones too, and they do die natural death. It is but obvious. As far as the latest calf is concerned, the death is has been confirmed natural and reasons might be many. But most probably it couldn’t have been able to cooperate and adjust with sudden change in climate with getting trapped into heavy monsoon rain right after its birth,” claimed Mishra.
He added that the elephant found infected with Anthrax was deeply buried in the ground so that the bacteria couldn’t find suitable environment for either being alive or germinate. “But I must say that many a times we have to rely upon doctors that we have been provided with. The problem is that the State doesn’t have enough wild-life doctors. So if they claim that there is no sign of Anthrax and even no necessity to go for tests, we have to rely upon them,” said Mishra.
Notably, Anthrax has claimed 13 lives in Jharkhand after it was first identified in October 2014 in Simdega district after seven people died of vomiting blood after consuming dead animal meat out of their local food habits. RIMS Associate Professor (Microbiology) Dr Manoj Kumar said that non-willingness of any test in rural part of the State was a major reason of continual Anthrax outbreaks in State so far.