“Elephants are social animals and don’t easily forget the loss of herd members. From the details given by the residents of village where the incidents happened on Saturday morning, three elephants, including an adult and two semi-adults, are involved. We suspect that the remaining members of the same herd (particularly the adult) have attacked humans in fury at the deaths of ten elephants. We’ve formed multiple teams to search for the three elephants and rescue them after tranquilization,” a senior forest department official posted in the concerned region of eastern MP told .The twin tragedies happened while the entire top brass of the state forest department, particularly the wildlife wing, is camping in the BTR and holding meetings to ascertain the cause of the deaths of the ten elephants inside the tiger reserve.The top brass, including forest minister Ramniwas Rawat and senior bureaucrats and forest officials of the department rushed to BTR on Saturday, hours after the state’s CM Dr Mohan Yadav held a meeting with them over the deaths of the ten jumbos.According to informed sources, the CM wasn’t willing to buy the forest department’s theory of the ten deaths having possibly happened due to poisoning by mycotoxin present in the standing Kodo millet crop, which was consumed in large volumes by the 13-strong elephant herd.He is believed to have asked the department’s higher-ups to rush to the BTR and adequately probe the deaths followed by a prompt report summing up the findings.
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