Elephant found dead at farm

Raigarh, Jun 22 (PTI): A wild elephant was found dead at a farm in Chhattisgarh’s Raigarh district on Tuesday, a forest official said.
Prima facie, it seems the jumbo got electrocuted after coming in contact with a live wire laid by a farmer to operate a borewell at his farm, he said. The carcass was found this morning at the farm of Mehtar Singh in Banhar village under Chhal forest range of Dharamjaigarh forest division, he said. After being alerted, forest personnel rushed to the spot and started the process of autopsy, he said. Preliminary investigation suggested electrocution as the cause of the elephant’s death. The exact cause will be known after the autopsy, the official said. Singh was being questioned in this connection, he said. On March 29 this year, an elephant calf was found dead in Dharamjaigarh forest division of Raigarh.
Between June and October last year, 15 elephant deaths were reported in the state in separate incidents due to various reasons, including electrocution. Most of these deaths had taken place in the thick-forested northern parts of Chhattisgarh, comprising Surguja, Korba, Balrampur, Surajpur, Raigarh, Jashpur and Korea districts, which are known for human-animal conflicts. The region has also witnessed several killings of tribals and widespread damage to houses and crops by rogue pachyderms in the past years.
Sometimes, locals lay the electric wires illegally around their farms to prevent wild elephants from destroying their crops.