ROURKELA: A tusker succumbed to severe injuries inside the Kusumura reserve forest near Karuabahal village of Ujjalpur range of Sundargarh Forest Division (SFD) on Saturday noon. It is suspected the ill-fated elephant was gored to death by another tusker.Sources said during the intervening night of Friday and Saturday, the elephant tracking squads spotted the elephant and planned to extend treatment on Saturday morning.Accordingly, the SFD authorities along with veterinary doctors reached the spot, but the elephant collapsed and died between 10 to 10.30 am on Saturday.Sundargarh Divisional Forest Officer (DFO) Pradeep Mirase said the tusker had arrived from the adjacent forest of Chhattisgarh, adding that when they saw the elephant it was active, but its movement was sluggish.Mirase said they had come prepared to tranquilise the tusker for cleaning of its wounds for treatment in standing position, but it collapsed and died shortly after.He said after close examination of the carcass the veterinary authorities concluded the tusker died of fatal injuries with deep piercing from tusks of another tusker following a deadly fight.Mirase said besides small injury marks on the body of the tusker there were two deep stabbing injuries in the neck region and hind thigh which were infested by maggots, adding it appeared the deadly battle occurred between the tuskers 4-5 days ago. The DFO also said the height of the deep goring injuries could be reached by another elephant.One of the broken tusks of the dead elephant was found nearby which was stained with blood, the DFO said, adding that it is highly possible the other warring tusker also might have sustained severe goring injury.He said the Joint Task Force has been informed of the incident along with sharing of video and photographic evidences.However, the other tusker could not be traced in the nearby region. Efforts were underway to conduct autopsy on the carcass and bury it nearby the spot of its death.
Source link
