While confirming the entire development to , the MP Forest Department’s additional principal chief conservator of forest (APCCF-Wildlife) L Krishnamurthy said, “It will be premature to comment right now about the reason behind the deaths of the four elephants and health deterioration of five others of the common herd. Our vets are already there, while experts from the School of Wildlife Forensic and Health in Jabalpur too are being rushed to the spot. An STSF team from Bhopal too is on its way to probe the incident. Further, our combing teams are already searching in the area in connection with the incident.”Experts from the Wildlife Institute of India (WII-Dehradun) are also in touch with the MP state forest department.Bhopal-based wildlife and RTI activist Ajay Dubey, however, suspected major poisoning of elephants through the use of pesticides in the standing paddy crop or the millet crop in the nearby villages. “This is the first case of so many elephants losing their lives in a small jungle patch while simultaneously, many others of the same herd are in a critical state. Deaths are possible due to electrocution or rail hits and sporadic cases of poisoning. But so many elephants getting killed simultaneously feels like a bigger conspiracy,” he shared.”My demand to the CM Dr Mohan Yadav is to institute a high-level probe as to how this major killing happened. Was the paddy or any other crop from where the elephants returned sprayed with an extremely high dose of pesticide? This mass killing shouldn’t be probed by only the forest department. Since it could be linked to the excessive use of pesticides in the area, the Umaria district administration should institute a thorough magisterial probe,” stressed Dubey.Importantly, the Bandhavgarh Tiger Reserve which houses the densest population of tigers in MP, has become home to a big herd of wild elephants since 2018.More than 50 elephants originating from the neighbouring district of Chhattisgarh, have reportedly made the Bandhavgarh Tiger Reserve their permanent habitat. The same area of eastern MP, particularly Shahdol and Anuppur districts have reported growing cases of man-elephant conflicts in the wake of wild herds from Chhattisgarh often damaging their crops.The Tuesday afternoon death of the wild jumbos in the core area of Bandhavgarh Tiger Reserve, particularly assumes significance, as the same reserve was in the news some months back due to the rising mortality of tigers.The National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) had ordered a probe into the tiger deaths there. A committee comprising experts, among them the officer in charge of STSF, had probed the deaths at BTR subsequently and found some grave anomalies.
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