Jumbo leap to check unnatural elephant deaths

CHENNAI: Tamil Nadu on Wednesday became the first State in the country to bring out an Elephant Death Audit Framework that promises thorough investigation and scientific documentation of every jumbo death.  CM MK Stalin released the framework during the State Board for Wildlife (SBWL) meeting, which was held after a gap of four years. The last meeting was conducted in December, 2018. 

“One of the important decisions taken and incorporated in the framework is to upload all the postmortem interim reports of elephants on the forest department website within 24 hours of conducting autopsy. The periodical death audit report will also be placed on the public domain on quarterly basis for maintaining transparency,” read the framework document, a copy of which is available with TNIE.    

The release of the document comes in the backdrop of the Madras HC constituting a special investigation team to probe into high-profile elephant poaching cases, which remained unsolved for years due to shabby investigation. A Wildlife Crime Control Bureau (WCCB) report had also specifically highlighted instances of under-reporting of poaching cases and deliberately allowing several key accused walk scot-free, especially in Coimbatore division. 

According to State authorities, while poaching rates have come down drastically, there remains a lack of clarity on natural versus unnatural deaths of elephants, and how this is affecting the population in the long run.  Additional Chief Secretary to the government in Environment, Forests and Climate Change department, Supriya Sahu, said, “Besides addressing the issue of transparency, the framework prescribes Systematic Standard Protocol for reporting, finding out the cause of death, understand the circumstances in cases of preventable and unnatural deaths and formulate remedial measures by monitoring these over time. Each case will be taken to a logical conclusion.”

She said the audit reports over a period of time will help the department in problem solving. “If deaths happen because of linear infrastructure, disturbance in migratory paths or some other issues, we can intervene.”  As per the guidelines, deputy director of tiger reserves, district forest officer or wildlife warden in charge of a national park or wildlife sanctuary and territorial division heads would be responsible for adherence and implementation of the framework.

A committee headed by conservator of forests or field director of tiger reserve will review the progress on a quarterly basis for filing of the Periodical Death Audit Reports. K Kalidasan of OSAI, an NGO on nature conservation, said accurately identifying the cause of elephant death is critical.“The framework mandates creation of a centralised database. It will help in disease profiling and analysing other causes. The department will be able to fine-tune its management practices accordingly,” he added.