Thursday, June 24, 2010

Unabated killing of wild elephants poses threat to ecology in Assam

The tragic death of two wild elephant calves near Indo-Bhutan border in Udalguri district has again exposed cruelty of human beings. According to information received,two wild elephant calves (one of three years and the other just only one year old ) were found dead in the Nepaligaon village near Koramore under Harisinga Revenue Circle,in the morning of June 13.According to the version of the local people a herd of wild elephant was seen moving in the nearby villages the previous day.A few villagers said that the wild elephants were looking for food. They further said that the elephant could have eaten the poisonous mixture of urea and pesticides kept open to be used in the mini private tea gardens located in the Amraiguri areas 3 km away from Nepaligaon.It is suspected that the elephants had mistaken the poisonous mixture of urea and pesticides to be common salt.

It needs mention that hundreds of private mini tea gardens had been etablished in the northern areas of Udalguri district,previously belonged to thick forests where wild elephants could roam free. Encroachment of all the forest lands under direct patronage of Circle Officers,Mandals etc. during the last decade had been the root cause of so called man elephant conflict in the district. A total of ten wild elephants had been killed in 2009 and three in 2010 (including the present two )posing serious threat to ecology.

A government team headed by DN Hazarika,Circle Officer,Harisinga Revenue Circle along with forest veterinary and police officials visited the spot on June 13 before postmortem was done. Last fortnight witnessed the death of a ten years old wild elephant ( electrocuted or poisoned?) at Bhutiachang TE.in Udalguri district. Nature loving people have expressed serious concern at the unnatural deaths of three wild elephants in a month in a single district and condemned government apathy towards solving the problem

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