On July 29, a 25-year-old tusker in Narasinghpur East range of Athagarh forest division of Cuttack district with at least five pellet injuries in its head and ear died of organ failure. The veterinary doctors who treated the elephant unsuccessfully suspected that one of the pellets may have gone deep inside its head.
The wounded elephant, likely a victim of a gang of poachers in Athagarh, was first sighted on July 23 by local residents, who informed wildlife activists and
On July 29, a 25-year-old tusker in Narasinghpur East range of Athagarh forest division of Cuttack district with at least five pellet injuries in its head and ear died of organ failure. The veterinary doctors who treated the elephant unsuccessfully suspected that one of the pellets may have gone deep inside its head.
The wounded elephant, likely a victim of a gang of poachers in Athagarh, was first sighted on July 23 by local residents, who informed wildlife activists and the chief wildlife warden. It was tranquillized and captured on July 25, but it was too late by then, as the pellet wounds had become septic.
The death of the pachyderm was a re-run of a similar poaching of a tusker in the first week of June, when another elephant with at least five pellet injuries on its trunk, face, legs and body was found writhing in pain in the same forest range by local people.
A team of vets from Nandankanan zoo in Bhubaneswar was rushed to treat the elephant after Debi Prasad Mishra , former Biju Janata Dal minister and local MLA, drew the attention of state forest minister Pradip Amat about the tusker in his Facebook post. The elephant died a week later.
The killing of the two elephants is among the 13 cases of unnatural deaths of tuskers in Odisha forests in past two months, making it the biggest casualty of the pachyderms in a short span in more than a decade, according to people familiar with the matter. Of the 13 , at least five deaths are due to poaching, including that of a 40-year-old tusker whose decomposed carcass with gunshot injuries was found from a cashew orchard in Jagannath Prasad forest range in Ghumsur North Division of Ganjam district late last month.
Lure of ivory
On Saturday, forest department officials seized a tusk of that elephant from a latrine pipe in the district and arrested two persons. In June and July, the special task force of Odisha police found bones and carcasses of five elephants, including a tusker from Athagarh forest range, one of which was shot dead and allegedly buried by forest department staff to conceal their deaths.
The last time there was a major uproar in Odisha forests over wildlife poaching was in April and May 2010, when the carcasses of 14 elephants were recovered in Similipal Tiger Reserve of Mayurbhanj district by an independent inquiry committee of the National Tiger Conservation Authority. Forest staff had burnt and destroyed the carcasses to destroy evidence, the team had found.
The state forest department had taken swift action in Similipal poaching case, suspending several officials. In case of the burning and concealment of carcasses in Athagarh division this year, 10 forest department officials, including a forester, have been arrested, while two rangers have booked on charges of suppression of information.
The government has also constituted a special investigating team comprising forest and criminal investigation department officials to probe rising elephant deaths and allegations of coverups, but there seems to be no end to poaching.
Last week, Congress MLA Santosh Singh Saluja alleged in the state assembly that a total of 245 elephants have died of unnatural causes in Odisha in past three years, of which half could be due to poaching.
“Elephants are not safe in Odisha. In Athagarh, the skeletal remains of elephants were exhumed by the crime branch STF (special task force). This means the elephants were poached for their tusks before being buried. These tusks are being sold in foreign countries,” alleged Saluja.
Poachers’ paradise
Poachers are running amok as the forest department has failed to take stringent action or achieve a single conviction in wildlife crime cases in past two decades, wildlife activists working on ground said.
There is a seven-year imprisonment term for killing any elephant as it is protected under Schedule I to the Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972, but not a single poacher or ivory trader has been convicted in last 20 years.
While denying bail to a notorious poacher, Afzal Baig, arrested in five cases of elephant poaching, the Orissa high court in 2015 had remarked the large-scale poaching for ivory trade is causing an alarming situation. “Even though the Elephant Census Report 2015 of indicated that population of elephants in Odisha increased from 1930 in 2012 to 1954 in 2015, the poaching is causing an alarming situation,” the court said. “Such activity is no less than a violent and brutal crime.”
It was only the STF of the state crime branch that has been tracking cases of elephant deaths through its network of informants on the ground in past two years, elephant conservationist Biswajit Mohanty said. “The forest department, despite having a huge network of officials ranging from forest guard to DFOs (divisional forest officer) and RCCFs (regional chief conservator of forest), have no real way of gathering intelligence about these poachers,” he alleged.
At least 970 elephants have died in Odisha since 2010, of which 426 died of natural reasons, official data show. In over 200 cases, the reason of death was unknown as the bodies were highly decomposed. At least 133 elephants were either poached or poisoned, while 144 were electrocuted, Mohanty alleged.
The biggest evidence of poaching have come from the STF, whose officials have seized at least 27 tusks in past two years from different parts of the state. “Though we are not sure if there is an organized gang operating in the state, we believe there are smalltime poachers who are looking to hunt the animals for the lucrative tusks. We are able to seize the tusks due to our army of informants,” an STF official said on condition of anonymity.
On July 24, STF officials recovered partially burnt bones as well as ashes from the Tabalei-Deogaon reserve forest and Kolgaon forest in Sambalpur district. “While one spot had bones scattered, in the other, most of the bones were disposed off elsewhere. From the size of the bones, they appeared to be that of large adult males who were poached for ivory,” another STF official said.
Chief wildlife warden Shashi Paul did not respond to questions on why his department was unable to deter poaching.
Culpable foresters
As forest department staff are reluctant to pursue cases of elephant poaching, they have taken to concealing elephant deaths, wildlife activists alleged.
“In the past five years, the forest department managed to pursue 47 of the 89 elephant poaching cases. As the finding of an elephant body whose death is unnatural would mean filing a case, investigating and trying to apprehend the culprits, they are resorting to concealment of the deaths,” said honorary wildlife warden Subhendu Mallick.
Although there is a government circular issued in 2012 by the Odisha government, which holds DFOs accountable for every unnatural death of elephants, it has remained just on paper till now, activists said.
The rising elephant deaths due to poaching as well as concealment of carcasses is surely a bigger wildlife crisis than the state government is willing to admit, wildlife activist Belinda Wright said. “The Odisha forest department will not be able to investigate these shocking suspected crimes against some of their colleagues, if they keep the matter under wraps,” Wright said. “For the honour of Odisha and the department itself, the investigation should be transparent and involve known independent experts from outside the department.”
The rising elephant deaths have come at a time when human-elephant conflict is rising in the state. Of the 1,578 people killed in elephant attacks in India between 2019-20 and 2021-22, the maximum number of deaths were from Odisha, which accounted for 322 casualties, Union environment and forests minister Bhupender Yadav told the Lok Sabha last month. Jharkhand with 291 cases and West Bengal with 240 were second and third on the list.
Many fear that the rising poaching and concealment of the carcasses may lead to disappearance of male elephants. In Ganjam district, where 11 adult tuskers were counted in May 2017, 10 died either by electrocution or poaching in the past five years.
“Ganjam appears to have already reached a critical stage.If the remaining male also falls prey to poaching or electrocution, it could spell doom for Ganjam elephants,” said a forest official, unwilling to be named.
In Odisha, the last elephant census was carried out in May 2017, during which 1,976 jumbos were counted. Of the total, 344 were found to be adult males. Since then, the state has lost 104 male elephants above the age of 15, mostly to poaching and unnatural deaths like electrocution, poisoning, train kill and road kill.
Once the tuskers are gone, it would be a matter of time before the entire elephant population in the state meets the fate of tigers in Similipal tiger reserve, where their numbers came down from 100-odd to less than 20, wildlife conservationist Mohanty said.
“Without male elephants, how would the population rise?”
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