Daijiworld Media Network – Sullia (SP)

Sullia, Aug 9: A wild elephant that had strayed from the forests in search of food, raided the plantation of a farmer. It thereafter went in search of Baine Mara (fish-tail palm), its favourite food, but got electrocuted while devouring the palm leaves on Friday August 8. The incident occurred at Herakaje within the limits of Nalkur reserve forest area in Devachalla village, which falls under Subrahmanya forest range.

At around 11 pm on Thursday, the pachyderm, aged around 25 and having two tusks, entered the plantation owned by a farmer named Chinnappa Gowda between Kollamogru-Kandrappadi connecting road in Devachalla near Guttigar in the taluk. After the dogs of the house, which sensed that an animal had raided the plantation, started barking, the family members got up. They created some sounds, which made the elephant fearful. It exited the plantation in a hurry immediately, although it came again into the plantation later, before rushing out once more. It then visited a nearby hillock where it started to consume leaves of the fish-tail palm tree.

When it turned when eating the palm, a 11 kv power cable came in contact with a nearby tree. The pachyderm, which suffered severe electric shocks, fell by its side in the roadside drain. The rear side of the elephant, where it got electric shocks, was found to have been badly burnt.

Chinnappa Gowda, who visited his property in the morning to check for damages if any inflicted by the animal to his property, saw that the lifeless elephant had fallen by the roadside. He then conveyed this information to forest department officials.

It is gathered that a small tree standing next to the Baine tree snapped and fell on the high tension power line passing above, when the elephant turned. Electricity passed through the tree and delivered electric shocks to the elephant, which fell down and lost its life. The forest officials saw that the tree had fallen on the power line. On the face of it, involvement of others in the death of the elephant was ruled out. Assistant conservator of forests, Dr Dinesh, range forest officer, Subbaiah Naik, Panja range forest officer, Praveen Kumar Shetty, Subrahmanya range forest officer, Balakrishna Acharya and other forest officials visited the spot and conducted inspection and inquest. District deputy conservator of forests, O Palayya, lso visited the spot.

Palayya said that the officials have conducted spot inspection, and postmortem was got performed through a veterinarian. He added that information was conveyed to wildlife officials as the elephant had tusks, and that the carcass of the elephant was consigned to flames as per their suggestion. Sullia assistant forest conservator, Dr Dinesh, said that they have taken up investigation into the death from all the angles. Mescom assistant executive engineer, Pradeep and Guttigar branch manager, Boraiah, felt that the elephant got electrocuted after coming in contact with electricity through a tree that leaned against the power lines.

In February last year, a person named Hosoli Ram Bhat had been crushed by an elephant under its feet when he had visited his plantation to change sprinkler at night. That incident had occurred about three km from this spot.

Chinnappa Gowda said that there was no power supply when an elephant entered his plantation. He said he and other family members came out after the dogs barked. 'When we shouted, the elephant ran away. After the elephant trumpeted again half an hour later, the dogs came home running. Thereafter, power supply had got snapped and resumed twice. On Monday morning, I observed that my plantation had not suffered losses, but a fish-tail palm near my plantation had been broken, and another tree had leaned against power lines. I also saw that an elephant had fallen dead by the side of the road,' he explained.

A large number of people, who came out of their houses in spite of heavy rains, visited the spot. They also helped the forest officials in burning the carcass of the animal by pooling together firewood from the forest.