An elephant calf is trying to revive its dead mother. The young one attacked wild life officials who came to remove the carcass for tests. Later, it had to be tranquilized
The carcases of seven well-grown elephants, believed to have been the victims of poisoning, were found on Friday and Saturday in a north-central forest reserve in Sri Lanka.
According to Sinhala language Dinamina daily, all the seven elephants were females while four were pregnant and lactating. Wild Life officials have recovered the carcasses of four wild elephants on Friday, while three more were found dead on Saturday at the Habarana Hiriwadunna Forest Reserve.
Post-mortem examinations have been carried out and preliminary investigations have revealed that they had died of poisoning. Some pregnant females were lactating.
A young calf was seen near its dead mother caressing her body with its trunk and trying to revitalize its mom, attacking wild life officials who came to remove the carcass for post-mortem. On a Youtube video a veterinary official is seen shooting the calf with a tranquiliser to remove its mother’s body for examination.
The villagers say they heard elephants violently trumpeting from Friday afternoon. Some officials attribute the deaths to the man-elephant conflict. The villagers in the area are heavily dependent on their cash crops.
A young boy said some villagers earn a living by working as guides for tourists who frequently visit the protected area to see wild elephants. A foreign couple was seen in a video going to visit the site of the tragedy on bicycles.
Police and army personnel were seen combing the forest area to see whether there were any more casualties.
According to Ceylon Daily News, the villagers say they are not responsible for the deaths. One man said that in a similar incident four years ago many wild boar and buffalos died in what was suspected to be an epidemic.
The elephants suffer from a shortage of food and last year six elephants died after scavenging for food in a plastic waste dump.
Nearly 200 elephants are killed every year in the country. Elephants also kill roughly 50 people annually, mostly when the creatures stray into villages looking for food. Sri Lanka’s elephant population has dwindled to just over 7,000, down from an estimated 12,000 at the beginning of the last century, according to official statistics. – newstrails.com
