Male elephant found dead on foothills of Palamalai

Coimbatore: The forest department on Friday carried out postmortem of a male elephant, which was found dead on the foothills of Palamalai in the Periyanaickenpalayam forest range on Thursday.
District forest officer (DFO) D Venkatesh, range officer S Suresh and department’s veterinary officer Dr Sukumar visited the spot. No injuries were found on the 12-year-old elephant, Sukumar said. It had died 10-15 days ago. The ivories were intact. The carcass was left at the reserve forest for scavenger after samples were collected for analysis.
With this, eight elephants have died in the Coimbatore forest division since March.
On June 1, decomposed carcass of a female elephant aged 5-7 years was found in Kallar reserve forest in Mettupalayam forest range. It had fell into a 30-foot-deep gorge while searching for water.
A male elephant was found dead in Mettupalayam forest range in May. On April 7, a seven-year-old male elephant was found dead inside the reserve forest in Sirumugai forest range.
A female elephant aged 32-35 years was found dead on April 17 in Sirumugai forest range. Lesions in intestines caused the death, veterinary doctors said. On May10, an 18-year-old female elephant died from pregnancy-related complications in the range.
On April 16, a six- year-old male elephant was found dead in Manur beat of Karamadai forest range due to brain hemorrhage. A male elephant was killed following infighting in Boluvampatti forest range on April 15.